Secret Strength
by unfortunateblessings
Summary: After Sirius died, Dumbledore decided that Harry should be properly trained. Pushed beyond his limits, Harry finds solace in someone unexpected. Slight Hermione bashing. Eventual slash.
1. Chapter 1

I own nothing.

Chapter 1

Harry was busy staring out the window when someone came into his compartment and sat down opposite of him. The flash of white-blond from the corner of his eye was all he needed to identify him.

Harry withheld a sigh. He'd been hoping to avoid the confrontation until tomorrow.

"What do you want Malfoy?" he demanded. His was wand ready, though not yet visible, at his side.

"Please, Potter," Malfoy sneered. "The world doesn't revolve solely around you. The other compartments are full."

Harry was going to make a snarky comment about Malfoy's incarcerated father, but the other boy pulling out his transfiguration book made him pause. Really, that was it? No threatening to get back at him for putting his father in jail and bringing shame to his family?

"Shouldn't you be terrorizing first years or something?" Like hanging out with his goon squad.

"The prefect meeting finished, and the younger years have been assigned to their duties." Malfoy made a show of looking around the compartment. "Where's your fanclub anyway?"

Harry shrugged, not knowing or really caring. He was tired and had picked one of the back compartments in the hopes that he'd be left alone. This summer had been utterly brutal. Following the death of Sirius, Dumbledore decided that Harry needed proper training. His three weeks at the Dursley's consisted of madly trying to complete the readings from the massive tomes the headmaster sent every few days along with quizzes to make sure he was learning what he read.

Then he'd been brought back to Hogwarts where he could perform magic under the school's heavy wards and not worry about the ministry. Moody was his instructor.

The man might have been a brilliant auror, but no one could ever mistake him for kind. Moody trained him without any regard for Harry's physical, emotional or magical limitations. Drilling him in auror level magic, expecting him to perfect spells in nearly impossible time frames and his punishments for failure were… harsh. Harry believed the man truly wanted to break him.

Kept on guard at all times to avoid traps the man set up around the school, and taxed by time to complete Moody's assignments as well as the theory work the headmaster insisted he know, Harry never slept more than a few hours and only made it through with the case load of pepper ups he'd ordered from the apothecary.

Harry had never been so relieved that the school year was starting up. Finally, he'd though. A full nights sleep, no more booby traps, no more checking to see if his food was poisoned (he'd never made that mistake again after ten hours in agony while Moody took him to task). Yesterday he'd nearly cried when the headmaster had called him in to tell him that he'd be taking the train with the other students… and that he'd continue working with Moody throughout the school year.

Harry was so tired… he'd been dragged into training this morning before the sun rose. He glanced at Malfoy, who looked like he was actually studying. He shouldn't. It was stupid. Moody would literally kill him if he found out.

If he found out.

Putting a discreet, but powerful ward up around him to wake him if anyone entered the compartment or even if magic was about to be cast. And another mild shield, just in case. Harry laid down on the bench and closed his eyes.

….

Draco watched Potter bundle his cloak up as a pillow and lay down.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping," Potter didn't even open his eyes. "Unless you're dying for my conversational skills."

"Why would I want to talk to you Pothead?"

"Exactly my point."

Draco gaped at the other boy, especially as his breathing slowed and evened out. Potter was sleeping! Sleeping! Draco didn't really know if he should be outraged, insulted or amused. Never before would he have dreamed that Potter would find it safe to sleep in his presence, especially not after getting his father sent to prison.

Not that Draco minded that last bit. Yes, it was a black mark on the Malfoy family name that wouldn't be forgotten, but Draco would prefer that to his father's increasingly volatile company. Now with his father behind bars – again – Draco's mother enlisted the use of several old laws that gave Draco full access to the Malfoy accounts and the official lordship when he turns seventeen in February. Most importantly, it gave Draco full control of the wards. All summer they'd had ward masters working to destroy any possible hole that would let any unwanted persons into the manor. There was no way he would allow his mother to be touched by the insanity of her sister or the Dark Lord's other followers. Not that he'd ever let Potter know that.

Still it wouldn't do for the other boy to think that Draco was harmless.

Deliberately fingering his wand, he thought of a prank or hex, but even as the words began to form on his lips, Potter creaked an eye open and tensed. Ah… not so trusting then. Satisfied, Draco sat back, not caring that the other boy settled back down as well.

Instead of going back to his transfiguration text, Draco observed the other boy over its' pages. His nemesis still hadn't grown much, judging by Potter's small form curled up on the bench Draco bet, somewhat gleefully, that the other boy wouldn't even reach his chin. Potter was skinny, somebody poetic might call him slender, but that suggested soft. There really wasn't anything soft about Potter anymore. He was all angles, with dark bags under his eyes and hollows in his cheeks. Even his arms were thin with hard wiry muscles.

He looked sick. Whatever he'd been doing this summer hadn't done the boy any favours physically. Magically, that was a whole different story.

There had always been a bit of power to Potter, as much as he'd loathed to admit it. It had always been there, uncontained, tickling at his senses. But now that irritation had grown into a full aura that sent a delightful shiver down his spine. It was warm and inviting and made Draco want to purr. That aura had drawn him into this compartment even as he was walking past to join his friends. If Potter, exhausted enough to sleep in Draco's presence, felt like this now, what would it be like when the other boy was alert and rested?

"Where do you think Harry is?"

Draco could hear the shrill whine of that stupid mudblood Granger nearing their cabin and quickly cast a locking charm, swiftly followed by a notice-me-not spell. When he turned back he could see Potter was awake again, but before he could think of anything to say, the other boy's eyes closed again.

"Thanks."

"I didn't do it for you," Draco snarled.

"I know," Potter sighed, nestling further into his pillow. "But Ron's loud and I want a nap. Thanks anyway."

Draco snorted. It was true, the weasel and mudblood were always so loud, all the time. He could understand why someone would want to avoid them. But Potter usually put up with them anyway. What had changed between the Golden Trio?

Draco pondered the question while skimming the first few chapters of his transfiguration text again. As the train neared Hogsmead, he closed his book and changed into his school robes.

"Potter get up," he went to poke the other boy when green eyes opened and he sat up. "Where almost there."

Potter eyed him warily before nodding and putting on his robes overtop of those muggle rags of his.

Draco made certain to get off the train first. Crabbe and Goyle had already commandeered a carriage and were waiting outside of it for him.

"Where were you, Draco?" Vincent asked, holding out a bag of liquorice wands.

"I was avoiding Pansy." She had been especially clingy now that he didn't have to wait for his father to die in order to inherit the Malfoy title and fortune.

"Harry!" the mudblood's shrill cry made Draco pause before entering the carriage and look back at the Griffindors. "Where were you? We looked all over for you!"

"Did you?" Potter asked, wincing visibly when that idiot Weasel pounded him on the back on greeting. "I was in the back. I guess I fell asleep."

Draco smirked and got into the carriage. There was something different about Potter this year. It would bear watching.

…..

Harry just barely managed to make it through the sorting feast. He was tired, he was still sore from this morning's duel with Moody and Ron and Hermione were going on and on about their summers. Ron went to Romania and Hermione to France before going back to Grimmauld Place for a couple of weeks before school started. They apologized for not writing, but of course had been told not to.

"And we have professor Moody for a teacher." Hermione said, looking up at the head table. "What do you think He'll be like?"

"Well," Ron laughed. "At least we won't have to worry about him trying to kill Harry here."

Harry winced, not being able to appreciate the joke. Not after time and time again of being in the hospital wing from his 'practice' sessions with the man. Luckily, he wasn't expected to keep up his end of the conversation. His friends assumed he'd spent the summer at the Dursleys, an assumption he didn't correct. They were eager to share stories of their escapades. Too eager. Harry wanted to tell them to shut up. That he didn't want to hear how wonderful their summers had been while he'd been miserable. But he didn't. His only reprieve from their attempts to allow him to live vicariously through them was that Dumbledore had wanted to see him right after the feast, so he didn't have to go back to the tower with them.

"See you later guys." He waved, and made his way. The gargoyle let him through with a simple 'acid drops'.

"Harry," Dumbledore greeted, gesturing him to sit. "Lemon drop? Tea?"

"No thank-you," Harry declined politely. "May I ask why you wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, Harry." The headmaster smiled. "I know you had some difficulties last year with Professor Snape. But I'm afraid that your lessons will have to resume."

"Resume?" Harry couldn't believe it. "That man hates me, he didn't teach me anything all last year. He actually made me more susceptible to Voldemort and you're telling me that I have to get lessons with him again?"

"Harry," he chided. "Occlumency is a skill that you must learn and I'm afraid that I cannot be the one to teach you. Professor Snape is the only other option. But," he held up a hand to stifle further protests, "you will have a new method of instruction." He pulled out several thin volumes and handed them over. "Perhaps if you learn the different theories of occlumency, you will have a better grasp on it. Professor Snape is a natural occlumens and so he was instructing you in the same manner he was taught."

Harry accepted the books, feeling drained. There was no point arguing, he knew. If he'd known this skill before, Sirius wouldn't have died and he wouldn't have nearly gotten his friends killed. "When will I start?"

"October." The headmaster smiled over this quick capsulation. "The times will be discussed between you and Professor Snape. Your first lesson with Alastor Moody, however is at six on Wednesday."

"Yes sir."

"Your class schedule for the year."

Harry looked it over and gaped. "Sir, there must be some mistake, I'm not taking Runes."

"You did very well this summer," Dumbledore pointed out.

"Those were basic rune texts."

"Nonsense, Harry. What you studied were summaries of the first three years of Runes. You may be a little behind in history, but the exam I had you write last week confirmed your ability to take the class. Professor Sinastra agrees with me. It's very important that you learn these things Harry."

Harry closed his eyes. "And the Healing? I didn't even know it was offered."

"Another very important class, Mme Pomphrey only takes a few students per year. You should be proud that she took you on."

"But sir," Harry sighed. "I have a full class load already, how am I going to fit in all these classes, as well as the time to study them, along with my tutoring sessions with Moody and Professor Snape and quidditch?" Then he quickly said it before Dumbledore could say what Harry knew he was thinking. "I'm not giving up quiditch."

"I wouldn't ask you to." Dumbledore held out his hand for the schedule and looked at it again. "I'm afraid these are very important that you take these classes… but perhaps Herbology?"

"Creatures?" he offered instead. As much as he loved Hagrid, he always looked at Harry to volunteer to approach wild and angry creatures.

"I'm afraid that class has many benefits." Dumbledore said. "It covers a wide variety of beings that you might come into contact with and you'll learn how to deal with them. Plants, though dangerous, are not on the same level."

"Fine." Harry closed his eyes as he said the words. He liked Herbology. Even if he wasn't a genius like Neville, he was good at Herbology. He liked digging in the dirt, weeding, transplanting. It was soothing. Plants were soothing and now he was going to have to give it up.

The headmaster made the adjustments and handed back the schedule. "There now, I'm certain you'll find time for everything. If you are having trouble, don't hesitate to come and see me, my boy."

"Thank-you sir," Harry said dully, getting up.

"And Harry?"

"Sir?"

"It's really important that you do well in these classes. They are the groundwork for things you will need to know later on."

Harry glanced at the large stack of books in his arms. There were so many. "Yes, sir. I'll try to not let you down."

…..

Ron and Hermione were waiting for him in the common room.

"What did Dumbledore want?" Ron asked.

"He gave me my class schedule." Harry held up the paper and it was quickly snatched out of his hands by Hermione. "He wants me to take different classes. You know to learn, for later."

"Runes?" Hermione frowned. "But you haven't taken Runes."

"Dumbledore gave me some books to study this summer," Harry shrugged. Ron gave him a look of condolence for having to work during the holidays and Harry had to smile a bit. "I did well enough on the written test Sinastra gave me, that she's letting me take the class."

"But you're not just in Runes, Harry." Hermione pointed out. "You're in the advanced NEWTs class."

"I didn't know there was a difference."

Ron had gone over to peek at the schedule over Hermione's shoulder. "You're taking Healing?"

"Healing?" Hermione repeated, scanning the page again. "I didn't know they offered healing."

"Sure they do." Ron murmured, "Charlie took it."

"Madame Pomfrey offers it to some students." Harry didn't know much about it. "I thought you'd be taking it when I heard about it."

"When did you hear about it?" she demanded.

"Just now, when I got my schedule."

"oh." Pacified Harry hadn't been keeping it from her, Hermione's brow furrowed a bit. "I wonder if I talk to Madame Pomfrey…"

"I'm sure she'll take you on," Harry yawned.

"You're taking a load of classes, mate." Ron said, "You trying to turn into a Hermione on us?"

"Professor Dumbledore says I need to." Harry was grateful that they seemed to accept that. "But I'm going to have to study really hard if I'm going to pass Runes."

"I'll help." Hermione volunteered. "It would probably be best if you go over my old notes, just in case."

Harry tuned her out as she started rattling off her plans to get him caught up. A few minutes later, Ron managed to extricate him from her grasp to help lug the semi-conscious teen upstairs.

"Go to sleep, mate." Ron laughed and gave him a bit of a push so that Harry landed on his bed. "You'll need it for tomorrow."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

I did correct Dumbledore's name from Chapter 1. Thank-you for telling me.

Chapter 2

Harry flopped onto his bed, exhausted. It had only been a week and he was already trying to find a couple of extra hours to brew himself a new batch of Pepper Up in order to keep up with his course load.

"Harry, mate," Ron called from the doorway. "Wanna play a game of chess?"

Harry stifled a groan. He didn't want to. Desperately didn't want to, in fact. A game might last more than an hour, especially if Ron wanted to play more than one. And Harry really needed that time to study Runes.

He didn't get why he was in this class. The advanced class. Sinistra had made it clear to him that he was expected to keep up and that any grade less than an E would give him a detention because she had made and exception for him. Dumbledore had okayed it.

"Sure Ron," Harry agree'd, mentally preparing himself for another late night and early morning. "Are you going to go easy on me this time?"

"I always go easy on you," Ron grinned. "You just suck."

They found an empty corner in the common room and set up the game.

"So…" Ron drawled slowly after a few minutes, obviously thinking of how to ask something. "Where've you been?"

"Studying."

"Where?" Ron advanced his rook. Harry had played with him enough to know that move meant Ron was going to stretch this game out. "You weren't in the library."

"I was in an empty classroom," It wasn't quite a lie. He's pretty sure it had been a classroom of some sort at one time. He'd found it during his second year and went there to be alone.

"You should study here, with us." Hermione said, setting down her heavy book bag and taking the empty chair. "What's going on Harry?"

"I really have been studying." Harry sighed. He'd figured out really quickly that studying with Ron or Hermione wasn't going to work. Ron always wanted to goof off, or people came and talked to them. Hermione was too nosy to study anything other than their core classes and Runes around, and she got frustrated when he failed to understand her explanation for why on Rune meant something and another, very similar Rune, meant something completely different. That's just the way it IS, isn't a good enough explanation for him. On top of that, she was still a little peeved at him for getting into the Healing class while she had been politely, but firmly, refused by Pomfrey.

"All weekend?" Hermione raise an eyebrow in disbelief. Ron raised two.

Fine. He wasn't going to be able to pull off not telling them, no matter what Dumbledore said. His friends would just start following him around until they figured it out. Leaning forwards, he discreetly put up silencing and notice-me-not spells. By the narrowing of Hermione's eyes, he could see he hadn't been nearly discreet enough.

"You guys can't tell anyone about this, okay?" He waited for them to nod. "After… after last year, Dumbledore decided I need proper training. Moody's going to teach me twice a week and on weekends."

"Really?" Hermione smiled. "Oh, Harry, that's wonderful."

"It is?" Harry asked sceptically. Then again, he knew what it would entail.

"It's a great opportunity!" Harry could practically see the wheels in her head turning.

Well, in for one, might as tell them the rest of it. "And I'm starting lessons with Snape again."

"That sucks mate," Ron patted his arm sympathetically before directing his bishop to kill Harry's knight. "Better you than me."

"Thanks."

"So lessons with Moody," Ron continued. "Do you think he'd take us on, mate?"

No and you don't want him to.

"I don't know, Ron." Harry said slowly. "You might want to ask him or, maybe, the headmaster. But don't mention that I told you he's tutoring me. I'm not supposed to tell anybody."

"Do you think he'll do it, though?" Ron pressed.

"He might." Harry looked at his friend and decided for a bit more honesty. "Ron, his idea of tutoring session is giving me a whole bunch of books to read, telling me to learn certain spells, he might show me once or twice, and then I'm expected to perform those spells a few times during a mock battle."

"Cor," Ron looked utterly undeterred. "That's awesome mate."

Not awesome. Painful, very painful.

"Harry," Hermione smiled at him. "I think it's great that you're learning from Professor Moody."

"Err.. Thanks?"

"We'll have to take some time to prepare and review what you've been going over. That silencing spell, for a start," Hermione pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. "I think it would be best to get started sooner than later. When do you think the first meeting should be, Harry?"

"Meeting?"

"For the D.A."

"The D.A.?" Harry glanced at Ron who looked just as clueless as Harry felt. "What do you mean? We have Moody now. He's a good teacher." Surprisingly, Moody was a decent professor when he was limited to what he was allowed to do to his students.

"That's just the school curriculum, Harry." Hermione rolled her eyes like he was the idiot. "We need to know more than that. When should we meet?"

"I can't, Hermione."

"Can't? What do you mean you can't?" Hermione looked outright insulted. "Harry, this is important."

"Hermione," Harry tried for gentle. "I don't have time."

"Then find time."

"There isn't anymore." Harry shrugged. "I'm taking more classes than even you. I've got tutoring with Moody twice a week, plus weekends. In a few weeks I'm going to be having lessons with Snape again, and then there's quidditch."

"Quidditch?" she huffed, "You're making time for quidditch?"

"Hey," Ron protested. "We need him. Quidditch is important."

"More important than the D.A. More important than learning to defend ourselves?"

Harry watched them squabble for a few minutes.

"Hermione," Harry broke in when they took a breath. "What do you do for fun? What relaxes you?"

"I read Harry, you know that."

"And I fly."

"Harry-"

"Isn't it fair for me to take a few hours a week to do something that relaxes me? I'm working really hard, Hermione, and it's only going to get worse as the classes get harder."

Hermione softened. "I suppose. Yes, I understand, but what about the D.A.?"

"You teach it." Harry said. "You're so good at learning things Hermione. You practically ran it last year, picking out the spells, making all the schedules."

"But you were the one who taught them Harry." She insisted. "You're the one they'll listen to. You learned the spells faster than even me. And we need to know what you're learning."

"Hermione," Harry started, thinking of the spells he'd been learning lately. Dangerous, violent spells. The truth was, he didn't think most of the members of the D.A. were powerful enough to control them, but he couldn't tell her that. "I'll give you a list." A heavily edited one. "You guys can learn them like I did. And if you have trouble with one, you can come up to me and I'll help you."

He'd pick out the simplest and easiest ones in his repertoire. Hopefully they wouldn't need any help.

….

Draco ignored the whispers.

Word had finally gotten around of this past summers events. He was a little disturbed that it had taken this long. There shouldn't have been a soul in slytherin that didn't know within hours of the welcoming feast rather than the weeks it had taken.

It was big news after all; the Malfoy Family had declared it's intent to become neutral in the upcoming conflict.

It was his Aunt Bella's fault, really. The stupid bitch shouldn't have touched his mother.

That useless sack of flesh had come into his home uninvited, demanding food and an audience with the both of them. Baring her rotting teeth in what she must have thought was a smile, she'd flirted. With him, her nephew. Draco wrinkled his nose at the memory of her filthy rags that would have made a cheap prostitute look demure. And she'd smelled.

All that was forgivable. She was insane, having spent over a decade in Azkaban. So they'd listened to her gush about the Dark Lord like a schoolgirl with a crush. And his mother stopped him from speaking out when she'd hexed his house elf.

But then she'd talked about funds. Naming ridiculously large sums she expected his family to provide. It turns out she and most of the Azkaban escapees didn't have access to their vaults, yet. And that the Dark Lord would be expecting the Malfoy family to fund his war.

"Bella…" His mother had frowned slightly. "I don't have access to funds beyond my monthly stipend." A very generous stipend, but still limited.

"Liar!" Bella had screamed and then Crucio'd his mother. There in front of him.

Draco was ashamed to admit, even to himself, that he'd been too scared to do anything. The spell had lasted only a second, maybe two, but it left his proud, unbendable mother curled up on the floor at Bella's feet. He helped her up and to a chair, but kept his focus on the dangerous creature in front of him. He'd been shaking, half in terror of what she might do and half in rage. The wood of his wand had creaked he had been gripping it so hard.

Walking around his manor like she owned it, she perused the decor. Touching things. She was inspecting it, she'd said. To see if it would be suitable for the dark lord. His ancient family manor. His home. Suitable for that half-blood of a Dark Lord?

When she'd left, promising to return soon, he'd shut down the floo and set the newly updated wards to maximum. They hadn't been lowered and wouldn't be. There would be no visitors to the manor this year.

People, of course, didn't know that story. All they knew was what Draco had let spread. The Malfoys had suffered a strong blow as well as disgrace with the 'loss' of its' patriarch and would be withdrawing from any politics until its' new head finished school.

The whispers came, oddly enough, not because he was considered a coward for choosing the middle ground but because he had the balls to do it. Most of slytherin, despite what other houses thought, were firmly neutral. Picking a side in any of these conflicts went against a proper pureblood family's number one rule; family first. Aunt Bella had forgotten that. Other than a few low-strength Dark Lord die-hards, most thought he had taken an intelligent course of action.

Draco smirked. It would take time, but he would eventually return the Malfoy name to its' previous political standing. And increase his wealth while doing so.

….

Harry stood wearily in front of Moody. The man was clearly enjoying himself, grinning wickedly with his eye swirling around madly.

For the past three hours, Harry had been dodging, feinting and blocking as much as possibly could, barely managing to find the tiny windows needed to send a few proper spells back Moody's way. Harry hadn't managed to avoid them all, though. His legs ached deep in the bone and his left hand was sticky with blood from a cut on his upper arm. He did feel a vindictive pleasure at seeing the other man sport a few injuries himself.

"Not fast enough, boy!" Moody yelled, throwing another blasting curse at him. Harry dodged, realizing it was a feint too late as his shoulder shattered under another curse.

"Your feet give you away, boy." Moody lectured, standing over Harry's body on the floor from where the curse had blasted him. "And you only used Passapere twice. I told you I wanted you to use it at least five times before the day was out."

"Yes, sir." Harry gasped out, trying not to move as the pain was too great.

"Constant vigilance" Moody yelled. "What did I tell you? Constant vigilance. You were getting sloppy."

"Yes sir." Harry tried to think of the freezing spell he'd learned yesterday in healing class. It would numb the pain and stop the bones from moving so he didn't get any muscle damage.

"Your spell casting is still too slow and unoriginal. I told you, Potter, that you can't keep using the same spells. You can't be predictable."

"Yes, sir. May I go to the infirmary, sir?" There was a long pause and for one awful moment he thought Moody was actually going to refuse.

"Yes, all right. I'll expect better from you tomorrow, Potter."

"Yes, sir." Harry didn't hold out any hope that today's injury would stop tomorrow's lesson. He'd had worse before this summer and Pomfrey, grumbling, mind you, still let him go the moment the potions had done their jobs. Harry carefully practiced the wand movement twice before freezing his arm.

It hurt, badly. But he believed that he could actually manage to get to the medical wing now. Good thing, because Moody just waited for him to stand before leaving.

Harry collected his bag, thankful that all that was in there was a couple of scrolls and some notes from charms. He could review while Pomfrey kept him in bed for a few hours.

….

Ron was there when he woke up.

Harry shifted and couldn't help a groan. The potion Pomfrey'd given him to fix his shoulder didn't work well with pain relievers and the salve she'd put on it had worn off.

"You're up!" Ron put down the quidditch magazine he'd been reading.

"Hey." Harry glanced around, but didn't see anyone else.

"Hermione was here for a bit," Ron said, guessing who he'd been looking for. "But then she went to the library to research that list of spells you gave her."

"Oh, and she didn't drag you with her?"

"She tried," Ron laughed, "but what kind of friend would I be, not keeping you company in the infirmary?"

"A normal one." Harry glance at the magazine and grinned, "admit it. You just wanted to finish my magazine before I took it back."

"That too."

"So, she likes it?" Harry asked, gauging Ron's face for a reaction. "The list, I mean? I haven't seen her since I gave it to her after Potions today."

"It's not bad." Ron shrugged, "I think they're pretty awesome spells. I finished learning that silencing one you showed me. It's going to be great for sneaking up on the twins."

"I don't know if a ghost could sneak up on them." Harry was pretty sure that they had eyes on the back of their head.

"Worth a try, though. Isn't it?" Ron's smile dropped a bit. "I asked Moody. Last night, I mean."

"Last night?" Ron hadn't said anything to him last night. "And?"

"He said I need permission from mum." Ron sighed, "she said no."

"Oh." Harry wasn't very surprised. He was under the impression that most of the order knew he was getting training. Mrs. Weasly probably knew, at least a little, that it wasn't the sort of training she wanted for her son. But Ron could sometimes get so jealous when Harry got special treatment. "Are you.. are we…?"

"I'm not mad or nothin'" Ron glanced at Harry's bruised face and the arm sling. "The amount you're studying… makes me a bit sick, to think of having to do it myself. Better just to learn the spells for the D.A. You'll help out when you can, right?"

"Yeah." Harry nodded, relieved. "You'll get them right quick, Ron. And by then I'll have a whole new list of cool spells for you to learn when you want to."

"That's what I thought." Ron pulled out a familiar looking box from his bag. "Enough talk, I thought you'd fancy a game."

….


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Draco slipped through the halls, keeping a wary eye out for other students. He didn't want anyone to find his small sanctuary from the masses.

Not very big, it was well equipped with a couch and two overstuff chairs that must have been stolen from the Gryffindor common room, if the deep red was any indication. It had a desk and an amazing view of the lake. Very comfortable and relaxing; a place he could go to be alone.

He'd found it last year when he'd been trying to figure out where Potter was holding practices for his little army. He never told anyone else about it, wanting to keep it a secret. Which is why he was surprised to find someone already there.

"What are you doing here?"

Potter sat in one of the chairs in front of the fire. He had a text book in hand and a blanket on his lap. Of all the rotten luck, why did it have to him?

"I could ask you the same question."

"This is my spot, Potter." Draco snapped. It was useless, he knew. He could see that stupid chin jutting forwards like a stubborn five year old. "Get out."

"What makes this your spot, Malfoy?"

"I found it first."

"Right," Potter snorted. "Like I believe that."

"This is my place Potter."

"Who do you think set up the couches?" Potter gestured pointedly to the red furniture."I found it first. You go."

"No."

Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out! Draco wanted to scream. He was so pathetically tired that he couldn't even argue properly. Pansy had been hanging off of him all night. He couldn't afford to completely snub her right now and the girl knew it. His reputation wasn't solid enough yet, after this latest upheaval regarding loyalties, to completely survive one of her malicious smear campaigns. They were her specialty. Fourth year Potter stinks pins, for example.

Potter shrugged. "Fine then. Stay, I don't care. I just wanted to get some studying in."

"What? They're not passing you on the basis of your celebrity status alone anymore?"

"Naw. Turns out they want me to actually learn something." As he turned a page, Draco noticed the white sling on his right arm, almost hidden by the throw.

"What'd you do to yourself Pothead? Go and suck up to that oaf of a groundskeeper and his pets?"

"Something like that." He went back to his book.

Draco debated leaving or staying. But no, he wouldn't be chased out of his spot by a stupid Gryffindor. Huffing, he sat down in the chair by the window. Lighting the wall sconce to see better, he pulled out his potions essay. He was a bit surprised when he looked over a short while later to find Potter had left the room.

Potter was already there, sitting at the desk, the next time Draco went.

"Why aren't you studying with your fan club, Potter?"

"I thought about it," Potter wrote something down from the book. "But I decided I liked your company better."

Draco blinked. Potter sounded completely and utterly sincere. It wasn't until he saw the slight quirk of the lips that he snapped out of it.

"Just don't bother me, Pothead. Just because I let you stay here, doesn't mean I like you."

Potter nodded.

Wandering over to the desk, Draco briefly read over the boy's shoulder, ignoring the way he stiffened up.

"That rune symbolizes eternal life, not long life." He sniffed. "Why did they let you into runes if you don't know a simple thing like that?"

"I passed the prep work."

"Barely, I bet." It was unfair. Draco had worked very hard to manage an outstanding on his owls and get into the advanced Runes class. Draco could still remember sitting in class, viciously pleased to see who had made it into the elite class and who had failed to make the bar. That mudblood Granger was there and, surprisingly, Finnegan. And then Potter showed up, seemingly to have randomly decided to take the class.

"Trust me," Potter muttered, making the change. "I'd rather have taken Herbology."

"Then why didn't you?" Draco demanded. "Digging in the dirt like a dog seems much more your thing."

"Unlike you," Potter snapped. "I am not given the luxury of choosing my own courses."

The small alarm clock on the desk rang. Potter silenced it, staring at the time for a minute before putting it and his books away.

"See you later Malfoy."

…

Harry was early on purpose. If he was in the room before Moody showed up, he could check out the room for nasty jinxes the man liked to use to keep Harry on his toes. He sent out a spell to check if there was anything on the door, and another to check if there was anyone in the room. The second came back positive. Unfortunately it also alerted Moody to his presence, if his eye hadn't seen him already to begin with.

Knowing better than to touch the door himself, Harry took a second to plan the first five spells he would use. Taking a deep breath, he blasted the door open and threw himself into the room. Harry ducked out of the way of the tell-tale bright red of a blood boiling curse, nearly colliding into a slicing jinx that would have killed him.

A glimpse of Moody showed a vindictive gleam in Moody's eye. He was in a bad mood for some reason and Harry knew that meant he wouldn't stop until he sent Harry to the hospital wing.

But quidditch was tomorrow.

It was the first one of the year, and Harry had been looking forwards to it all week. All summer, in fact. He refused to miss it because of his sadistic teacher. Gathering his wits about him, Harry attacked.

….

Draco watched Potter leave. What was he up to?

Curious, he did the only thing a proper slytherin would do. He followed him.

Draco kept a fair distance behind, all the way up to the gryffindor common room. At first he thought that was it. But two minutes later he came back out again without his book bag. Draco ducked behind a statue, holding his breath when Potter paused, glancing around as though sensing him, before moving on.

They made their way to the hall the defense classroom was in and Potter stopped just a few doors down. He watched Potter cast a couple of spells at the door and slump when the results came back to him.

Draco didn't know what he expected, but it certainly hadn't been Potter literally blasting the door off its' hinges and charging into the empty classroom.

There was no sound, but Draco edged forwards and peered in. Potter was duelling professor Moody. At first it seemed as though the ex-auror had Potter on the run. The old man was sending all sorts of nasty and illegal spells at the Gryffindor. There was this moment, where Draco could practically sense Potter arguing with himself about what to do before deciding on a course of action.

His spine stiffened and he stood as tall as his diminutive stature let him. Potter batted away two of Moody's spells, almost like it didn't take any effort or thought whatsoever. And then Potter let whatever leashes he had on his magic go.

It was like night and day. Even through the wards, Draco could feel the power the other boy practically resonated with. It tickled his spine, made his hair stand on end and caressed his magic in a way he'd never felt before. Draco ignored the feeling, intent on watching in stunned silence as spell after spell bounced back and forth between the combatants.

He'd known Potter was powerful, that he'd be a force to reckon with as he got older. But hadn't realized he was this good now. He could call it nothing less than a battle when he observed a slashing hex from Moody actually gouge the wall when Potter ducked. That hex would have killed Potter instantly should it have hit. Draco didn't know how long it went on for. Minutes? Hours? But when Moody called a halt, Draco could see that Potter didn't lower his wand. Could feel that Potter still held onto his magic, expecting another attack. He didn't trust the ceasefire.

Moody looked pleased and circled Potter. Potter moved with him, never showing his back to the other man, never keeping his eyes off his opponent. When Moody moved in front of the door, Draco could finally see Potter's face. It was not red with exertion, but white with either pain or anger. His red lips compressed in a thin line, his green eyes practically glowing and his hair looking tousled rather than messy. He was breathtaking. Sexy.

Draco almost startled with the thought. Sexy? Potter? That skinny shrimp? Sexy?

Draco watched the boy as the two went at it again. Moody was shouting something. Whatever it was had Potter sending out a string of painful curses. A pity none of them landed.

Draco crept away when the fight was obviously over. It was… disconcerting. He didn't know how he felt about what he'd just seen. Potter had always seemed so… average. Yes, he had magical strength, but he'd never seemed to have any drive to learn to wield it effectively beyond a few basic spells.

And that power… it was growing.

Draco licked his lips and, for just one second, let himself imagine he had control over that power. Delicious.

…..

"Where've you been Harry?" Hermione demanded as soon as he managed to get in the common room.

"With Moody." Harry grunted, heading for the stairs. He needed a shower.

"Harry," Hermione halted him. "You didn't go to dinner. You haven't gone all week. I know you can't have been with Moody all that time."

"I was studying."

"Really?" she didn't believe him.

"Yes," he sighed. "Really."

"You could have studied here, with us. Or in the library."

"I've tried that, Hermione."

"What do you mean, you've tried that?"

"I mean I've tried studying with you. It doesn't work."

"What doesn't work? Don't you want to spend time with us, Harry?"

"Of course I do, but come on, Hermione. You been there the last few times I tried to study with you guys."

"And?"

And? She asks. And? And he barely got anything done. Hermione wanted to discuss the DA, try to get Harry to help again or to work on that list he'd given her, Ron always seemed to want to play a game or vent about classes.

"Do you remember our third year, when you had the time turner and yet you were still never around?"

"I was working, Harry."  
"So am I." He sighed. "Look, Hermione. We can discuss this later. I really need a shower."

"All right, Harry." She huffed. "But don't think you're getting out of this conversation."

Of course not. It was practically the same one they had whenever no one else was around.

Harry took a long hot shower, letting the water drum over sore muscles and lessen the knots forming. He had to talk to Snape tomorrow. Apologize. He'd read the books and he thought he had a better method now. Snape had always told him to clear his mind, so he'd thought he was to think of nothing. That didn't work. But one book said that you could think of something and just that item, focusing on it. Like a cloud or a maze. Harry imagined his cupboard. He could feel the wood against his back, the small cot under his legs. He could smell the dust and slight scents of the cleaners stored with him. It was his safe spot when he was younger. As much as he hated his cupboard, he felt safest there. No Dudley to pick on him, no chores. There was no light. But he took comfort in the dark. The absolute black of nothingness where he was nothing and no one expected anything of him.

The one time his scar had started acting up, he'd tried it and it worked. The pain went away.

Back in the dorm, he could see everyone else was asleep. Putting a silencing charm around his bed, just in case of nightmares, he set his alarm for six o'clock. Enough time to review his potions notes and the next chapter or two before class and get to breakfast for once. Then he thought of the dark and his cupboard, his body and mind relaxing as he floated off to sleep.

….


	4. Chapter 4

Authors note: Hello, I know I have been getting this stuff out quickly but that's mostly because it's been really slow at work. Most of the plot is written out in a notebook I dragged around with me for a few months, so updates should (hopefully) continue to be frequent, but not necessarily every day.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 4

Harry showed up to potions class half an hour before it started in hopes that the man was there. He was in luck. The scowling man was seated at his desk, probably writing a massive T on someone's paper.

"What is it, Potter?" he snapped when he noticed Harry standing just inside the classroom.

"I wanted to speak with you, sir. If you are willing to give me a moment of your time." He'd rehearsed what he was going to say, line after line, response after response in regards to what the potions master might say or do.

The other man flicked his wand and the door slammed shut.

"I would like to apologize sir, for the way I acted last year." Harry hurried on before the man could speak. "Not just looking in your memories, either. I'm very sorry that I didn't work very hard at occlumency, that I insulted and blamed you. Professor Dumbledore told me that you were teaching the same way most people learn it. It was stupid and I'm sorry. And I'm sorry for what I saw in your pensieve. My father and his friends were bullies and I'm glad that I know that. I'm ashamed of them all for it, but I'm glad I know what they were really like. Not the fairy tales that everyone else tells me. I didn't tell anyone what I saw though, sir. Except for Remus when I yelled at him. I promise I didn't tell anyone else and I won't ever."

Severus observed Potter, debating on what he should do. He'd been filled with rage when he realized the topic of this conversation. He knew they were expected to resume lessons. Albus hadn't given him a choice about that. He had planned to make the boy pay dearly for his actions last year.

But now… Potter was different. He could see that. He apologized sincerely and much more eloquently than Severus had ever thought he would or could.

The boy nervously brushed his hair back, making the sleeve on his robe ride up, revealing a heavy bandage. Oh yes. He was taking instructions from Moody now. Had been for the entire summer as well. All Severus had heard was that Potter was improving. Judging by his new potions performance, he had to agree.

"Tonight, eight o'clock." Albus had said they needed to start by October. As much as he might want to put it off until then, this was perhaps the best opportunity to teach the brat something. Before Potter screwed up again.

Potter hesitated, his hands clenched and then he nodded. "Thank-you sir."

…

Harry made it just in time. Thank Merlin. He skipped dinner again in order to finish his Transfigurations essay and still managed two hours of quidditch practice before skiving off early for his 'detention' with Snape.

"Potter, get in." the man snapped, opening the door just enough for him to squeeze through and shutting it firmly behind him. Harry barely had time to put his bag down before Snape attacked.

I should really get used to this. He though idly, building up the image of his cupboard in his head. He could feel the man searching. Trying to get through the darkness. But Harry did what he always did recently. He set forth the picture. He imagined the taste of the dust on his tongue, the scent, the feel of the wood, everything. Focusing entirely on the image rather than on what Snape was doing.

"What, Potter." Severus snapped, pulling out. "Was that?"

"Professor Dumbledoor gave me some books on occlumency." Potter explained, reaching down to his bag and pulling out one. Severus took a look. The power of imagery in occlumency. "It seems to work better for me."

Indeed it does. Severus had no doubt that with more effort, he could eventually have broken through. He'd read about it, but never before encountered anyone who use this aide.

"What is it you showed me?"

Potter blushed. "Err."

"Potter!" he didn't have time for this rubbish. "Answer the question."

"My cupboard, sir."

Cupboard? Severus vaguely remembered seeing something, a few somethings about a cupboard last year. "Why this cupboard?" Severus sneered.

"It err…" Potter scrunched his face up, before apparently deciding on an answer. "It's a safe place, sir."

"Safe place." He repeated.

Potter blushed again. "It was my room until Hogwarts, sir. I slept there, I was sent there for punishment. It was my room."

"Ah." He understood that some children thought of their room as a haven. Severus frowned as he considered the statement and all its' meanings. He knew the Dursley house. There were four bedrooms. Why had Potter lived in a cupboard if there were four bedrooms? "Does the headmaster know this?"

"Of course."

Of course. Potter lived in a cupboard, of course the old man knew. "Again. Push me out Potter."

This time, he put more force into the spell. He knew what he was looking for. He recalled sifting through memories last year, but had though that they were one-offs. He was back in the cupboard again. But Severus pushed through, looking for cracks. Finding none, he threw a memory of that dead mutt, Black, out at Potter. Potter wavered for a moment and that was all he needed.

"Push me out, Potter." He ordered, driving deeper and deeper. Seeing the dog attack, the cooking, the gardening, the fat cousin. But he wasn't searching for miserable memories. He was looking for what he knew had to be there. The spoiling, the pampering, the attention seeking. Further and further back he went before coming to a door in Potter's mind. Ruthlessly, he went in… and found himself back in the cupboard.

Coming out, he barely saw Potter lying on the floor, gasping for breath. He barely noticed his own exhaustion. He would have to think. He needed to think about what he saw. He needed to think about the fact that Potter, seeing he couldn't just push him out, tricked him into getting back into that cupboard. Brilliant tactic. It wouldn't likely work twice. But it was good.

"You have to push me out, Potter." He growled at the boy on the floor. "Locking me in the safe place of yours isn't enough. You have to force me out of your mind."

Potter, still gasping for breath, didn't argue, as Severus expected.

"You were looking for something." He said, but didn't demand to know what it was. "Next lesson?"

"Saturday ten o'clock." Severus would prefer lessons with Potter to be even earlier, but he doubted the brat would manage to wake up that early. Plus, it got him out of supervising Hogsmead weekends.

"I'm sorry sir, I can't."

"Got a date for Hogsmead?" Probably the Weasley girl. She'd been mooning over her hero since first year.

"No sir," Potter denied. "I have lessons with Professor Moody Tuesdays, Thursdays and Weekends."

"All day?" Severus didn't believe it.

"No sir," Potter admitted. "We usually finish by five on Saturday. But…"

"But?"

"I'm usually in the nurses office after practice."

Potter said it blandly, reminding Severus of the bandage he'd seen on the boy' arm.

"He can't have injured you terribly if you resume lessons the next day." He pointed out, wondering how the boy was going to try to wiggle out of this one.

Potter shook his head. "I don't think Mme Pomfrey will let me go."

Severus decided he would check with the witch after. "Monday, Friday, eight O'clock then."

"Yes sir." The boy agreed and left.

Severus checked his time-piece. It was nearing ten but Poppy would likely still be in her office. Marching up there swiftly, he caught her checking the temperature for some first year.

"What is it, Severus?" she asked.

"I've come about Potter." He said shortly. "The boy said that he has a standard arrangement on Saturday evenings lying in a hospital bed."

Poppy snorted in disgust, motioning him to follow her into her office. She rifled through a drawer before pulling out a thick file and handed it over. "This is Mr. Potter's file since August of this year."

Severus eyed the thickness before opening it and sorting through it. Broken bones, dismemberment, burns, poisoning, sprains… the list went on.

"You kept him for overnight observation last week when he'd come in with third degree burns covering half of his body?" Severus asked in disbelief. This was Poppy. The woman who kept children on bed rest if they had a mild fever.

Poppy slumped down on her chair, looking as if she might cry. "Albus' orders. I don't know what to do Severus." Never mind, she was crying. Severus handed her his handkerchief. "The poor boy. I don't think I can go on with this. Last week he came in with all the bones in his right arm shattered. I had to remove the bone fragments and regrow it all. That man actually makes him get here on his own, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Harry has had to transfigure himself a crutches because his leg was broken. Moody refuse to help him even when it's life threatening." She sobbed. "I don't know how long the boy can last. Albus won't let me keep him any longer than he considers necessary. He said that he's had a word with Moody, but I don't know if Harry is getting hurt less often because of that or because he's now fast and strong enough to avoid too much damage." She admitted, blowing her nose. "I'm considering going to the medical board."

A serious threat. The medical board could declare Albus unfit a guardian and remove him from his post. They could have Moody incarcerated and Potter hospitalized for mental and physical observation.

"But his injuries are decreasing?"

"Or else he's healing them himself." She sniffed again and managed a watery smile. "He's my prize student, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"People who have suffered greatly in life are often the best healers." She shrugged. "Miss Granger came to me at the start of term, begging me to let her into my class."

"And?"

"That girl, as much as she likes to learn, could never manage in my class. She just doesn't have the certain type of empathy and understanding needed. Even Mr. Malfoy would have done better."

"And?"

"Oh," she waved it away. "He didn't want to take the class."

Probably revealed too much about his character, Severus thought of his godson. The boy was smart and much kinder than those outside Slytherin knew about. Crabbe and Goyle would have never made it as far as they did in schooling without his help and the first years were free from hazing under the basis that they didn't yet know enough to fight properly.

"Severus," she said earnestly. "Would you do me a favour?"

"What is it?"

"Will you watch out for Harry for me?"

He was about to say he already was when she went on. "I mean… simple things like not pairing him with Neville Longbottom."

How Neville Longbottom managed to get an O on his owls, he'd never know. But he could do this favour for Poppy. "Yes." And perhaps he'd get some amusement on the side.

….

"As of today you will have permanent lab partners assigned by myself." Professor Snape smirked to the class.

Draco hid a smile. His godfather sometimes took his enjoyment of seeing the students suffer just a bit too far.

"Longbottom with… Granger." Draco was delighted when he saw the irritating mudblood visibly sag and then offer a guilty looking Longbottom a pained smile when he moved to sit next to her. No more near-perfect marks for her!

On and on he went. Making certain to stick everyone with the worst partner possible. Macmillan had just broken up with Patil after cheating on her. Finnegan was with Abbot, who was nervous and jumped whenever he spoke to her. Draco waited, knowing it was coming.

"Potter. Malfoy."

Draco took in the stoic expression on Potter's face. Yes, his godfather was just that predictable. Though Draco wondered what he'd done to piss the man off to get punished like this. Potter might not be Longbottom, but he still sort of sucked at potions. Draco was a bit surprised that Potter didn't try to insist Draco join him at the back. Instead the shorter boy quietly picked up his bag and came up to the front to where Draco was sitting.

"I'm not willing to have my marks jeopardized by your incompetence Potter." Draco said. "You can prepare the ingredients. I'll do everything else."

"Fair enough." Potter nodded.

Draco kept an eye on Potter as they worked on the potion, occasionally giving him further directions. "Use the flat of the blade to juice those slugs, Potter." Potter tried it, smiling a bit when it worked. "The figs need to be peeled with a silver knife Potter, for potency." Potter switched to the directed knife. As they finished up, well ahead of the rest of the class, he caught Potter looking at him speculatively.

"What, Potter?" Draco snapped, wiping down his blades.

"I was just thinking that this won't be so bad after all."

Draco was about to deliver a stinging comment, when he hesitated. "If you do as your told Potter. You might learn enough not to depend on the m- the know-it-all."

Potter smiled a bit oddly, looking as disturbed by this cordial display as Draco felt. "I'll see you later, Malfoy."


	5. Chapter 5

Another short Chapter. But I promise I'll be working on a longer one this weekend!

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 5

"Mr. Potter," Professor Flitwick called as the class was packing their stuff away. "Please stay behind for a minute."

Harry ignored the predictable jeers from the slytherin's assuming he was in trouble. He wasn't… he didn't think.

"What'd you do mate?" Ron asked.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Ron. Harry shrugged, "Dunno."

"Do you want us to wait for you, Harry?" Hermione asked, shouldering her bag.

"Naw, I'll meet you at dinner. Just save me some rolls."

Flitwick was seated at his desk, glancing through someone's paper when Harry came up to him.

"Sir? You wanted to see me?"

"Mr. Potter," Flitwick blinked up at him, shaking his for a second. "Pardon me. Yes, I did. Mr. Potter, do you know why I asked you to stay?"

"No sir."

"Ah. No, no of course you wouldn't, would you?" Flitwick pushed forwards essay and Harry recognized it as his own from Monday's quiz. "You've been doing much better in my class this term, Mr. Potter."

"Really?" Harry let out a sigh in relief that it wasn't something bad. He had never been particularly skilled in charms, mostly squeaking by with acceptables. It was really only because of Hermione that he'd managed a solid E in order to get into this class. And this test was just an essay question and he'd had no idea if he was completely wrong or not. Picking up the paper, Harry could see that he'd actually managed an Outstanding.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks." Harry looked at the mark one more time before stuffing the quiz into his bag. "Is that all, sir?"

"No," Flitwick pursed his lips for a second and Harry thought that perhaps he was in trouble after all. "I was wondering if you would mind helping me with a little experiment, Mr. Potter."

"An experiment?"

"A small one. It shouldn't take very long at all." Flitwick stood and moved his chair out in front of his desk with a levitation spell.

"I'd like you to try a spell after I demonstrate it." Flitwick took out his wand and demonstrated the wand movement twice. "Compedis."

A small blue light shot out the charms professors' wand and shackles bound the four legs of the chair he'd aimed at.

Harry got it on his first try. It wasn't particularly hard. Moody had taught him something similar, but this one wasn't as useful. It was slower moving than the one Moody had taught him and thus easier to avoid. It was also easy to cancel.

"Well done." The professor nodded. "Now, I'd like you to perform another spell. Concito. It has the same wand movement."

Harry knew enough Latin to expect the chair to shake or something. So he visualized the chair shaking as he cast the spell. It didn't quite work, the chair just fell over.

Flitwick righted it. "Try again, if you please."

Harry added more power. This time the chair made a much more pronounced thwack against the floor, but still didn't do anymore.

"Again, Mr. Potter."

Harry frowned. What was he doing wrong? It wasn't the same spell, but it shouldn't be very hard. Or he didn't think it would be. He learned plenty of spells in defence with only a vague idea of what they were supposed to look like along with an incantation and wand movement. Why wasn't this working? Something niggled at the back of his mind as he tried twice more to get the spell.

"Again."

Defence… this wasn't defence. There was a difference. Charms was different. He couldn't remember how, but they were different. There must be something though. There was a reason why Professor Flitwick had him learn the shackling charm first. Beyond teaching him the wand movement.

Wand movement. It had something to do with the wand movement. He was doing it the same… but there must be something. Something that he's not doing anymore.

Harry looked at his professor, who raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"Again, Mr. Potter," he repeated.

"I'd like to try the shackling charm first, if you don't mind sir."

"If you want to, Mr. Potter. Go right ahead."

Harry shackled the chair again. But this time he was paying much more attention to the spell he cast. The movement of his wand along with the cadence of the compedis. The feel of his magic as it released.

"Concito."

The chair shook.

"Marvelous." Flitwick practically crowed. "Very well done, Mr. Potter. Oh. Well done."

"Er… thank-you, sir." Harry didn't quite understand what was so impressive. He'd learned hundreds of spells by now and a lot of them were harder and took longer to master than that one. "If you don't mind me asking, sir, what's this all about?"

"Of course, of course." Flitwick gestured Harry to sit and climbed up on his own raised seat. "I suppose you could say that it's about your mother."

"My mother?" Harry repeated, shocked. No one really ever talked about his mother. Just about James. "You knew her, then?"

"Of course! She was one of my best students." Flitwick adopted that far-off gaze Harry had come to associate with people thinking about his father. "She did very well in all her classes, but she was especially talented at charms. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when you hadn't shown any particular skill for my field. Until now."

"Now?" Harry might have done well on that quiz, but he certainly wasn't very good at learning charms. Just look at how many tries it took to learn such a basic charm like concito?

"You have always been a kinesthetic learner, Mr. Potter. You learn best by practical demonstrations, which is why you are particularly suited for defence against the dark arts. You also are a visual person, which also aids in transfiguration."

Harry shrugged, not quite knowing what else to say. Yes, he learned best by doing and imagining what the result is supposed to be. But what did that have to do with his mum?

"Defense is much more about gut instinct. In acting and reacting. Transfigurations relies heavily on knowledge of your subject and theory. Charm, however, is much more dependent on the process."

Harry wasn't really understanding. They learned about theory in all their classes, and then memorized the spells that went with it. Defence spent a bit more time on things like recognizing spells or dark creatures, but it all seemed essentially the same to him. He was just better at certain kinds of spells. His confusion must have been pretty obvious, because Flitwick tried to explain it in another way.

"How did you figure out how to perform the concito charm?"

"Well," Harry said slowly. "I thought I was doing something wrong. With the wand movement, I mean. Because they were the same movement. So I paid better attention to how the spell was said and how the magic was used."

"Exactly." Flitwick smiled triumphantly. "That's a process. A simple process. The concito charm is considered to be extremely finicky and relatively useless. It's also quite difficult to master on your own. That's why it is often used to judge a student's potential to learn charms. You did quite well, Mr. Potter."

"Thank-you, sir."  
"The headmaster has spoken to me that you were concerned about your abilities in my class."

Wait. What? The headmaster had talked to Professor Flitwick? Harry never said anything about charms. He tried a lot harder, because the headmaster made it seem so important. But he hadn't been too worried about it, because he really needed to concentrate on defense and lessons with Moody. Right?

"No…" Harry tried to assure the other man. "I'm all right, Professor. I'm just working harder this year."

"Of course you are," Flitwick agreed. "But there is no reason why I can't give you a little help. Perhaps an extra credit project or two and then we'll see how we can go from there.

"Extra credit?" Harry couldn't help sounding a bit incredulous. No teacher has ever offered him extra credit. It probably never occurred to them, it certainly hadn't him to ask for it.

"Yes," Flitwick paused, looking at Harry fully. "Unless, of course, you don't want to. You're under no obligation to do so."

Harry didn't want to. He was already struggling to keep up as it was. How would he manage more? But the professor was already starting to look disappointed… and he liked Flitwick. The charms professor was by far the most patient of all his professors.

"No," Harry assured him. "I'd like to. But quidditch and I'm doing a bit extra work in defence too."

"No problem!" Flitwick perked back up. "I certainly don't expect you to finish my assignment right away. Two weeks should be plenty of time, I think."

"All right," Harry agreed hesitantly. "What's the project, sir?"

"It's quite simple, really." Flitwick silently summoned a bowl and filled it with water from the aguamenti charm_. "_I'd like you to charm water. Be creative."

"But… we've never learned that, sir."

"No, of course you haven't. It used to be in the curiculum for sixth years, but it took too much time better spent on other things and I got tired of drying my robes. They always itch, you know. Never quite managed to improve that one to get rid of the itch."

"And you think that I'll be able to manage?"

"Certainly, Mr. Potter. It's essentially a logic exercise in charms. Keep that in mind. You'll find plenty of books on the subject in the library."

"Thank-you sir." Harry said, already regretting agreeing to this. Be creative? He could barely draw a stickman.

….

Hermione was already gone by the time he got to dinner, having a test in Arithmancy the next day and Ron was fighting with Seamus over quidditch. So he sat down next to Neville who immediately passed over a basket with two rolls left.

"Ron said to save you some."

"Thanks, Nev." Harry helped himself to a bowl of stew, casting the charms to make sure it was safe to eat.

"Why do you do that?" Neville wondered. "Check your food, I mean."

"Moody," Harry shrugged. "He snuck a few things into my food before."  
"That's horrible, Harry." Neville looked aghast. "Did you tell Professor McGonagall?"

"Dumbledore knows." Harry shrugged, "Anyways, what are you learning in herbology?"

"It's been great, Harry." Neville perked right up. It always amazed at how Neville changed when he talked about plants. He stopped slouching, lost his stutter and actually looked you in the eye. "Professor Sprout has us working Scarrows' weed. They're really tricky to get the hang of feeding."

Harry sat back, enjoying listening to Neville talk and quietly eating his own meal.

"Are you coming, Harry?"

"Mmm?" Harry looked around and realized that most everyone had gone. They'd finished eating a while ago and now Neville and Ron were up, ready to go. "Oh. No. I've got to go to the library."

"Is this about what Flitwick wanted?" Ron wanted to know.

"Sort of." Harry quickly explained about the project Flitwick wanted him to do.

"Let's see if I get this right," Ron said, looking suitably horrified. "You did great on that test… so he gives you extra work?"

"That's about it."

Ron shuddered. "Remind me not to study too hard next time we have a test."

"Ron," Harry laughed. "You wouldn't have studied hard anyway."

"I study!"

"Hard?"

"Well, no. But I study!"

…

After dropping by the library to pick up the books he needed, Harry made his way to the room. He knew he should probably go attempt to study in the library where he'd seen, and avoided, Hermione or in the common room with his friends… but Malfoy was up to something and Harry was curious. As well… he really wanted to finish the work for tomorrow. He rarely managed to get much real work done on Thursdays after Moody, so he made a point of trying to get as much done as possible the day before.

It was a bit strange that he'd been coming here off and on for years and had never run into Malfoy. Maybe that was because Harry didn't come here as often before as he did of late. Or Maybe Malfoy just found it this year.

The prat was already there, nestled into the chair by the fire, frowning as he tried to puzzle through something in the book. Malfoy took out his wand and practiced a movement for a minute before trying to transfigure the chair opposite. It came out looking like a much smaller fluffy grey thing that wiggled.

"You're flicking your wrist too hard." Harry offered, feeling a bit charitable after Malfoy had been so decent in potions this afternoon. "And a slight emphasis on the last syllable."

"I don't need your help, Potter." Malfoy scowled, but tried it anyway. It worked. A small grey mouse scurried across the floor.

"Of course not," Harry agreed. "You would have gotten it eventually. That text just doesn't explain that spell very well." He pulled out another book from his bag and offered it over. "This one is better, if you want to look through it."

Malfoy eyed it and Harry warily, obviously wondering what the catch was. Harry couldn't really believe he was being so nice, himself.

"Why do you have another text, Potter?" Malfoy took the book.

"Hermione picked up the alternative text to last year's tranfigurations, which was better in different ways to the other one we used. So I tried the same with this years and it's working so far."

Harry flicked his wand at the mouse that was making its way back and sat in the chair carefully. Moody had been in a foul mood yesterday and it took every bit of skill he'd acquired over the last months in order to avoid injury.

They worked in silence for a bit and then Malfoy reached in his bag, taking out a chocolate frog, eyeing Harry he took another one out and tossed it over. Harry caught it and stared at it in his hand for a minute.

"Eat it, Potter." Malfoy growled. "Honestly. You're starting to look like a corpse."

Malfoy was again reading the text, ignoring him.

"I… Thanks Malfoy." A couple of spells told him that there wasn't anything wrong with it.

Malfoy ignored him, but Harry saw that he didn't turn the page until Harry had taken a bite. When Malfoy left a few hours later Harry felt an urge to call out.

"Goodnight, Malfoy."

Malfoy stopped but didn't turn around. "Goodnight Potter."

….


	6. Chapter 6

Author's note: Hello! Here's the chapter I promised. I would like to ask for some constructive reviews. I have no Beta, so this is all me and second opinions on plot or character development would be nice.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 6

Draco took great pleasure in being the first to transfigure his chair into a mouse. He'd gotten it even before the mudblood who had frowned in his direction and had to try another three times before managing a full transformation.

Ha! McGonagall even awarded him give points. She never gave slytherin points.

Potter, he noticed, waited until three people had managed successful transformations before bothering. The resultant little white mouse did a couple of backflips before he transfigured it back.

Today had been a great day. He'd woken up and gotten to breakfast where his favorites were all within reach. At lunch Blaise saved him a seat away from Pansy.

Even in arithmancy, where Vector usually fawned over Granger, her star student. Draco got another one over the know-it-all.

Professor Vector liked to 'liven' up her class occasionally by having two students to race solving a problem. There were prizes, bars of chocolate, small gift certificates and sometimes even books. Unfortunately, she always asked for volunteers and she usually picked Granger.

"Who would like to give it a try?" She asked after putting up a problem on the board. Smiling widely when Granger raised her hand, she seemed oblivious when the two other volunteer's put their hands down. "Ms. Granger. Of course. Anyone else?"

No one raised their hands. Not even the competitives. "Anyone?"

Draco glanced at the problem. It was similar to the ones they'd worked on last class. He could see Vector glancing around and knew she would pick someone. Probably him.

Draco got up, ignoring her pleased "Thank-you Mr. Malfoy."

Granger was looking over at him with that superior little smirk of hers. They'd gone up against here quite a few times in the last three years. She probably won a little over half the time.

Sneering at her, he picked up the chalk, already going through the calculations and formulas needed in his head.

"Take your places… get set… GO!"

Draco's chalk flew across the board. Click=clacking at a frantic pace. Chalk dust crumbled over his hands as he pressed too hard.

Multiply by the second integer….

Take the third coefficient because it was one sided….

Value is subtracted…

X is…

Draco slammed his chalk own and took a step back. At first he thought there was an echo. Then, glancing over, he realized he'd finished first.

Draco grinned victoriously at her only to find her doing the same. What? He looked at her equation. The answers were different. There was no way he got that wrong. Draco scanned her problem. He knew he did everything right.

"Congratulations…"

And then he spotted it.

"Mr. Malfoy."

Granger had used the wrong coefficient.

"Don't worry," Draco said, sounding so patronizing he might as well have patted her head. "I'm sure with a bit more practice you'll get it."

He almost crowed when she glared at him as he received his prize. A three galleon gift certificate to Scrivenshaft.

Yes. Today was definitely a good day.

….

The boy held out his hand, smiling in delight as the broom leapt up into it. Looking right, then left, he mounted his firebolt and took off. It was exhilarating. Crystal robes flapping in the wind, rapture was visible on his face to the two onlookers below.

"Marvellous, Mr. Potter," Professor Flitwick clapped his hands in delight, eyes riveted on the tiny quidditch player flying around the room. "Simply marvellous! Have you given any thought to colour?"

Harry flicked his wand and the crystalline figure flew back towards him. He waited until it was right close before cancelling the charms and guided the water back to the basin it had come from. "I tried. I can get it to all turn one colour, but I can't make the body different colour from the robes."

"Because the figure remains, essentially, a liquid." Flitwick nodded. "Did you try to make it ice? It would be much easier to add pigment then."

"I did, but then it didn't fly well." And wasn't that a wasted effort. He'd started with building the figuring before making it fly. When he'd realized that water wouldn't let him get the colours he wanted, he'd switched to ice. But then it flew all over the place like Ron's owl, Pig. Harry had spent hours, hours!, trying to get the blasted thing to work. He'd even gone to Hermione. The girl had spent more time quizzing him about this extra credit project Flitwick gave him and then figuring out how Harry had done what he'd managed thus far than helping him to make it better. It wasn't until she started talking over his head about particles and atoms and movements (none of which he understood) that she used the word fluid and he remembered how much sleeker the figuring made from water had looked. So he went with that instead. It worked.

"And do you know why ice did not fly as well as water?"

Flitwick asked, but he was already turning away, heading towards the door that Harry imagined led to his office. "Come along, Mr. Potter."

"Umm.." Harry tried to answer, but all thoughts left his head when he entered Flitwick's office. He'd never really realized that there was a tower next to the classroom. It was at the end of a corridor and he'd never thought about it before. The room itself wasn't very wide, but it went up and up, at least four stories high. Four stories of bookshelves filled the room. Piles of papers impossibly tall swayed dangerously on floating tables and chairs that dotted the airspace next to a winding staircase. There were magical knick-knacks everywhere. Jewelled metal fish swimming in an empty tank. Globes of light following Flitwick around as he climbed the stairs to find whatever he was looking for. A set of armour was sitting at a window seat… reading. It was… it was amazing.

"Ah, here it is." The charms professor called and then jumped off his step two stories above and floated down. "Right. Neanderline's liquid animation techniques. Very rare. I'll expect you to take good care of it."

"Yes, sir." Harry took the book, but remained suitably confused. "Er… did you want me to write an essay or something, sir?"

"Oh!" Flitwick blinked. "Oh, no. Mr. Potter. I simply thought you'd like to learn some spells from that particular book."

"Thank-you," Harry still didn't understand.

"The charms you did to create that quidditch player of yours were very well done. It was a test, you see. Water is an element that adheres more strongly to the laws of nature. Created of ice, a charmed object would be much more prone to act slower than the same object made up of water or gas. That's because the particles are much less active."

"Hermione was saying something…"

"Ah yes, Miss Granger," Flitwick nodded. "Think about when you're cold. Do you feel like running around all over the place or bundling up and sitting by a fire? The colder the particles of water are, especially when they form ice, the less inherent energy they have and less prone to moving at all, even if prodded by magic."

"Why didn't the books I read say that?"

"The books relating to charming water are few because they're much harder to control and thus used less often. Better books on the subjects are located in the restricted section."

"But," Harry was confused. "Then why did you want me to do it?"

"A test, Mr. Potter." Flitwick smiled proudly. "Water charms require layering techniques and control I didn't know if you had. They can be very powerful and I needed to make certain that you could learn them without hurting yourself before lending you the book."

"I still don't understand…"

"Professor Moody has habit of using spells involving fire." Flitwick nodded to the newest bandage Harry knew peaked out from the collar of his robe. "They aren't particularly effective against someone familiar with offensive water charms."

Harry looked at the book with a decent amount of respect.

"Thank-you sir." He said, much more effusively than before. "I really appreciate this, sir."

"Remember, I'd like it back in good condition."

Harry nodded. Perhaps if he learned something before tomorrow, he could get Moody to stop using that bloody fire-whip.

He was so distracted that he nearly ran into the man himself.

"Potter." Moody's eye swirled around and he smiled unpleasantly. "It's storming. The headmaster has forbidden quidditch practice, so you're mine for the evening. Meet me at four."

Harry swallowed. Moody sounded too happy and there was no way he could learn a new spell by four when he had another two classes. Bugger.

….

Draco didn't realize he'd been waiting for Potter until he got irritated that the other boy didn't show.

By seven Draco had finished his potions reading and was getting frustrated with transfiguration. It wasn't that he was bad at the subject. But he had to work a lot harder at it than any other class.

He was a bit relieved his father hadn't been around this summer. Lucius would not have been pleased that his son was third in that class for the fifth year in a row. The ravenclaw Patil he didn't mind so much. It was the only class she excelled in and he saw her working on it all the time. Granger, though, that pissed him off.

Draco scowled. Granger wasn't any better than he was at the subject. Like him, her only saving grace was theory and written exams. Her position as top of that class was blatant favoritism by McGonagall. It was probably best demonstrated by Potter, of all things. Potter had always been good at transfigurations, as loath as Draco had been to admit such a thing. His practical work had always intricate and detailed. Draco could remember the one time last year he was really jealous of Potter. It had been in transfigurations and Potter had easily transfigured his worm into an owl. It bad looked exactly like his snowy owl, Hed-something. It had been magnificent to look at and had even acted like Potter's owl did when she delivered his mail. McGonagall hadn't even really noticed, other than a 'well done'. She hadn't awarded points, she hadn't even given it the nauseating praise Draco expected. No, that had been given to a subpar looking sparrow Granger had created beside Potter. The drab little thing couldn't even fly at Grangers first go at it.

Where was Potter? It wasn't that Draco cared, he just wanted to borrow that text book again. This time he'd write the title down and order it. It was so irritating. For the last few weeks Potter was almost always here when Draco came. Or else he would show up by now. It wasn't like they hung out or anything. But Potter didn't complain when Draco rifled through his bag to find the secondary textbook for transfigurations and Draco deigned to answer, occasionally, when Potter asked a question about runes. ('Potter, you incompetent, that symbol reverses the meaning of the entire sequence. Your answer is all wrong.')

They'd managed to get on tolerably as partners in potions as well. Draco had stuck to assigning Potter the task of preparing the ingredients because the other boy seemed to do that quite well.. It was a total bonus that he got to boss around the boy-who-lived and irritate the gryffindor's friends at the same time. He didn't know if his godfather had anticipated the outcome or not, but none of their potions had turned out to be anything other than perfect.

Draco checked him time piece, huffing when he saw that it was after eight.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered, packing up his books. Potter was probably in his common room hanging out with those losers he called friends. Really he wasn't going to check for him. Perhaps just a slight side trip on his way to the library. If Potter was at either place, so be it.

Draco kept an eye out for creepy ex-aurors on his way to the room Potter fought with Moody in. Draco had come and watched them a couple of times. It was a bit frightening, how violent this 'training' Potter underwent was. It was more reminiscent of his father's teaching techniques than the blond cared to remember. It seemed to work though. Potter had advanced incredibly far since last year.

Potter's new abilities really served as motivation for Draco to keep up on his own studies.

The room was empty, but there was a heaviness to the atmosphere that came from powerful magic and fresh blast marks on the stone walls. There was also the smell of burnt flesh.

Somehow, Draco found himself in the healing wing without really meaning to go there. He stood just outside the door. From this angle, he could see Potter was in his usual bed. The boy looked terrible. A bandage around his head. Mme Pomfrey sat beside him, talking about something as she smoothed salve over a bad burn on his arm.

He waited until she was done before stepping forwards.

"Mr. Malfoy," Madame Pomfrey stood and quickly approached him, eyes already looking him over for injuries. "What has you visiting today?"

"I was looking for P- Mr. Potter, ma'am." Draco tried for a winning smile. It must have failed because she just pursed her lips and shifted a bit to block his view of the other boy.

"Oh?"

"He has a book I need," Draco moved so that he could see Potter again. "For transfigurations."

"Oh!" Potter nodded from his position on the bed. "I have it here, in my bag."

It was enough. The nurse back off, murmuring that she'd return in just a moment while heading to her office.

"Are you going to miss potion tomorrow?" Draco pointedly eyed the bandages before rifling through Potters rucksack hooked at the end of the bed.

"I should be okay."

"Right," Draco snorted. Taking the book he wanted, he pulled out another one too. 1001 underhanded dueling techniques. Interesting.

"Not that one," Potter lunged for it.

"Hold on, hold on." Draco held it out of reach, amused. "I'm just looking at it."

"Give it back Malfoy." The name held more venom than he'd heard from the boy since last year. Potter didn't get out of bed yet, but he held his wand tightly.

"Calm down, Potter." Draco handed it back after scanning the author again. "I wasn't going to take it. I just wanted a look."

Potter's glare faltered. "I.. I'm not supposed to show it to anyone."

Recalling the horrible beat down Draco had seen last week where Potter had been barely deflecting the curses Moody cast, Draco could understand. It was best to avoid angering such a teacher when possible. Besides, he had similar books at home. This one just looked more recent and he was curious which spells it contained.

"Did you read up on tomorrow's potion?"

Potter's flushed cheeks was all he needed to see. Sighing, he pulled out his chapter notes and replicated them onto blank parchment.

"What?" Potter took the notes, looking confused as he realized what it was.

"I'm not getting bad marks just because you hurt yourself," Draco snapped, already feeling self-conscious about giving into the impulse in the first place. "And you're helping me master that spell for transfigurations tomorrow night. You already know it, right?"

"Yeah." Potter quirked an odd little smile. "Tomorrow then. Seven thirty?"

"Don't be late, Potter."

…

Potter met him in the hall before the door of what was rapidly becoming 'their room'. He didn't look well. There was a blood smear across his cheek, his eyes looked glazed and his hand trembled as he reached for the door knob.

"What the hell happened to you, Potter?" Draco demanded, pulling the boy inside and sitting him down.

"Why Malfoy," Potter tried to laugh, but it ended up a croaking cough instead. "I didn't know you cared."

"I don't." Draco undid Potter's robes, easing him out of them so he could see. There were a couple of bloody tears in Potter's muggle shirt. The skin underneath was whole, but there were shiny scars Draco knew you didn't get if Madame Pomfrey healed you. "You're such an idiot, Potter."

Spying Potter's bag, he dumped it. Ten books feel from the deceptively light bag and then a wooden box thumped onto the pile. Draco recognized it as an unbreakable potions container. Opening it, he saw several different vials and he searched until he found a pepper up. Unstoppering it, he handed it over and then went into his own bag. Finding the sandwich he'd brought along in case he was hungry later, he put it into Potter's hand.

"Eat."

Potter looked at the sandwich for a long time until Draco snapped. "I said eat it Potter. If I wanted to poison you I wouldn't have bothered with the pepper up."

Potter slowly took a bite, chewing it and swallowed. He waited for a minute before taking another.

Draco sighed, finding his thermos, he poured the other boy some Hot Chocolate and was pleased when Potter drank it without question.

"Aren't you going to ask me what happened?" Potter asked. He was looking better, not much. But he didn't look like he was going to keel over any time soon.

"Would you even tell me?" Draco snorted when Potter frowned a bit. "Don't bother. I know you're fighting Moody. I don't know if it's lessons or if he gets kicks beating on someone a third his size. I just thought since you saw him yesterday that you wouldn't have today."

"Does anyone else know?"

"I imagine not." Draco drawled slowly. "I don't suppose anyone would care if you choose to beaten to a pulp regularly."

"So… you're not going to tell?"

"Tell whom?" Draco sneered. "My housemates won't care. The Dark lord? Why would I help the man who put my father in prison? Who leaves him there?"

Potter looked like he was going to say he'd put Malfoy senior in Azkaban, but miraculously shut up in time.

"Now," Draco turned to the books. "If you're done wasting my time, you're supposed to help me be the first to get tomorrows transfiguration. It's been driving McGonagall crazy to give slytherin so many points."

Potter smiled, sitting back on the chair closest to the fire Draco started.

"Show me what you're doing so far."

…

Harry was so very thankful that there was a game today. Gryffindor was playing hufflepuff and Ron wanted them to get up by at least a hundred points before Harry caught the snitch. So far the score was fifty-twenty for gryffindor.

Harry kept an eye on the other seeker, occasionally pretending to be caught up in a chase to confuse the other boy.

Feeling a bit energetic, he flew loops and did feints, going slow enough to keep the other seeker on his tail, but fast enough that they didn't realize Harry wasn't chasing anything at all.

Moody had gone easy on him yesterday, so Harry was able to fly his best today. Harry didn't question it; he was thankful for the reprieve. Tonight he would party with the rest of gryffindor, hopefully making up for the fact that he hadn't been around in a while.

Spotting Malfoy, Harry took great delight in flying right close to him, spinning up to force a blast of wind directly at the prat. When he looked back, Malfoy's impeccable locks were in disarray and he was trying to pat them down.

Looking at the scoreboard he saw that gryffindor was ahead by ninety points. Good enough, he thought, starting to search in earnest for the snitch.

It didn't take long. The golden wings fluttering just below Malfoy in the slytherin box. Harry took off, urging his broom faster and faster, barely aware that McMillan was behind him, trying to catch up. The snitch flew up and Harry followed. Up and up, before abruptly reversing and going straight down. Harry felt the thrill of the chase, reaching forward, his fingertips nearly touching the golden ball. The ground coming up too quickly. Making a split second decision, Harry gripped the broom tightly with his right hand and lunged forward. Fingers tightened on the ball, he swung his legs around, falling for an instant before the broom flipped as well. And in a complete reversal, he was flying up, holding the snitch up high in victory.

The team was cheering and crowding around. Ron was ecstatic. They'd gotten the last points while Harry was concentrating on the snitch. He barely registered the end of game formalities, eyes searching the quidditch stands for one person.

Malfoy looked pissed off. Harry swallowed, not knowing why he was so disappointed with that.

Much later, after the party in which far too much alcohol was imbibed. Ron had forgiven him for not being around and even Hermione seemed much more relaxed. Harry quickly swallowed the sobering potion he'd made a point to acquire before going to the party and headed for the room.

"What the hell are you playing at, Potter?" Malfoy demanded as soon as he entered the room. "You could have killed yourself!"

Harry blinked. Of all the reactions he imagined Malfoy would be having regarding Harry's victory, this was not one of them.

"Relax Malfoy," Harry shrugged. "It wasn't that bad."

"That bad?" Malfoy growled. "Your feet practically scraped the ground in that suicidal move you just did. Have you ever even tried it before?"

Harry blushed. It was a bit risky, and if he had been thinking beforehand, he probably wouldn't have done it.

"What's wrong with a wronski feint?" Malfoy demanded. "Or a number of other stunts I'm sure wouldn't have meant you were risking your life for a game. For Merlin's sake, you're still covered in bandages from the last time that psychopath of a teacher taught you a lesson."

He… he was worried about me? Harry wondered at the thought as he took in the angry stance, the hands on hips. Malfoy was going on about the other less risky moves he could have done, going on about how stupid Harry was to have done what he did. Harry was reminded in a way of Mrs. Weasely reprimanding her children when they got into trouble, not that Malfoy would appreciate the comparison.

"Okay." Harry said.

"Okay what?"

"Okay, I won't do it again." Harry promised.

Malfoy paused, apparently realizing he'd said too much. He sniffed. "Like I care Potter."

But he did. Harry could see that. For some reason, Malfoy cared that Harry had risked his life needlessly. Harry brought out the two butterbeers he'd stashed in his pocket and offered one to Malfoy, who took it.

"It did look cool though," Malfoy offered.

"Thanks." Harry sat on the window ledge, looking out at the lake. "The next game is slytherin against ravenclaw, right?"

"Not that they're any competition. Chang's too slow and if you get her flustered before the game she can't fly straight."

Harry didn't mention the fact that Malfoy shouldn't be harassing the other team; he was a slytherin after all.

…


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 7

The room became smaller and smaller. There was nowhere to go. Taking deep breaths, his lungs filled with cleaner scented air and dust. Nothing left to do, he pushed against the walls. He pushed and pushed. Until there was a crack, then two.

Severus barely dipped into Potter's next memory before pulling himself back.

"You're moving too slowly," He told the boy gasping on the floor below. "You have to be quicker. I have been teaching you using a fraction of the power the Dark Lord will. Every second he is in your mind is a second too long. "

Potter nodded, taking in a few more breaths before shakily getting to his feet. Severus waited until the boy had both feet firmly planted.

"Keep me out!"

Again he was in the cupboard. Severus quickly checked for visible gaps in the walls, under the doors. Good. He pushed firmly against weak spots that had been there before and they held firm. He would be satisfied if he weren't still here. If Potter was putting in a decent effort to eject him from his mind.

With the skill of an excellent legilimens, Severus once again made himself an opening. Driving is psyche down, battering against the floorboards. They gave away unexpectedly quickly and Severus found himself in Hogwarts.

They'd played this game over and over Severus barged into doors, recognizing Potter's signature by now on areas the boy wanted him to go into and avoiding them. He witnessed scenes of neglect, of a victorious Potter on a quidditch field, of Potter in classes. Things he'd already seen over and over these weeks.

Severus avoided the mind trying to herd him out for several more memories before withdrawing himself.

"That was pathetic, Potter." Severus sneered. "You haven't improved even the slightest."

"I'm sorry sir," Potter breathed harshly, one hand gripping his head. "I'll work harder."

"I don't want you to work harder," Severus snapped. "I want you to work effectively. You should be so proficient in occlumency that it should take you no effort at all to completely hide your mind from mine."

"Yes, sir."

"Clear your mind before you sleep, Potter."

"I do, sir."

"Obviously not often enough." Taking a look at the still shaking form, he growled. "Stay."

Not two minutes later, he returned with two potions. The boy had stood up and was now seated on the chair they'd started this lesson on. Annoyed, Severus thrust the first vial forwards. "Drink, this Potter."

"What is it?" Potter asked, eyeing the vial with caution, but he took it.

"Put some of those refined skills to the test." Severus crossed his arms, "unless you want to admit that the only thing carrying your marks thus far is being partnered with Mr. Malfoy."

Frowning, Potter held up the vial to the light and then unstoppered it. Before he could bring the glass near his face, Severus couldn't help but hiss.

"Has five years in my class taught you nothing?" Potter looked unsurely at the vial and then at Severus a few times before he seemed to have gotten a clue. What an idiot. Severus kept himself from pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation, but only just.

"A pain draught." Potter said after wafting the scent towards him, he glanced at Severus for the professor's confirming nod before swigging it down.

"And this."

Potter swished the pale green potion around, checking the viscosity, and then smelled it.

"A… a nutrient potion?"

"Are you asking or telling me?"

Potter stiffened, "telling you, sir. We made it last year and Madame Pomfrey gives them to me, sometimes."

It was an easy enough potion to identify. It smelled like apples and tasted similar as well.

"Well," Severus snapped. "Drink."

"But… why, sir?" Potter asked, but he did do as he was told.

"Potter, I know that this is going to be difficult for your pea-sized brain, especially as you've been starving it of all nutrition." Severus banished to two empty vials to the sink and wondered why he, of all people, had to be the one to talk about eating habits. "I don't care if you are skipping meals to make yourself thinner, either to be attractive or to better fly on that ridiculous broom. Stop it. There is no point teaching you how to shield your mind when you haven't given your body the fuel it needs to fight intruders. By now you know where the kitchens are and there is at least one of the servile creatures there that dotes on you. Get something there if you choose not to eat in the great hall. And Potter, if you ever come to my class or this tutoring session again without having eating something, you'll be scrubbing cauldrons and writing essays for Madame Pomfrey on nutrition. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Potter was looking a bit dazed.

"Then get out." There was no point continuing on today and Severus certainly didn't want to have the brat around. When the boy left, Severus contemplated what to do. It was only seven o'clock. And he was neither on supervision tonight, nor on tomorrow's duty roster for Hogsmeade (the one concession he'd gotten from the headmaster in return for teaching the boy occlumency again).

Manually scrubbing down the vials (magic left residue that could ruin more sensitive potions) he stared at them for a minute after placing them on the drying rack. Poppy had been giving the boy nutrient potions. It wasn't something they often had a lot of call for and it had an extremely long shelf life, so he hadn't made any more this year. She was probably running low.

Grumbling about idiot boys starving themselves to death and ruining his first decent Friday off in weeks, Severus headed to his private lab.

…

Harry locked his jaw and wrinkled his nose in an effort to keep Moody from seeing he was yawning. It was seven in the morning and he'd been here since five. After Snape's weird lessons last night, Harry had managed to spend a little time with Ron and the other boys in his dorm. It was fun. Harry had gotten another shipment for the twins containing the new candies they're working on and the year-six gryffindor boys spent hours testing them out.

Harry just wished he'd gone to sleep a little earlier and managed to get up in time to sneak some breakfast before he had to be out with Moody. They'd spent the last two hours testing Harry's memory of the spells he'd been learning since this summer. He'd done well. Obsessively reading over an ever-growing list every night meant he didn't forget more than one. And that one had been pretty useless overall.

"That was pathetic, Potter."

Oh be still my heart, a compliment. Harry wondered if there was a special 'how to be a bastard' course that Moody took. Or maybe he taught it. Because even Snape gave credit where it was due. Mostly. Snapes' 'decent' was equivalent to anyone else's 'outstanding'. And you knew if your potion was especially good, because he had you bottle the whole thing if it was something useful like a cleaner or medical potion.

"Bet you wish you could join your little friends on their shopping trip, don't ya?" Yes. He definitely taught the class.

Harry shrugged. There was no point denying it when it was true.

"I'll tell you what," Moody smirked. "We'll stop here today. If you beat me properly in a duel."

"Stop? I can go to Hogsmeade?"

"If you beat me, we'll be done for the day." Moody agreed.

There was a trick in there somewhere. He knew it. He just didn't know what the trick was. Harry nodded anyways and got into position. It didn't matter anyways. He would have to duel Moody either way.

There was no point starting small, either. Especially if Moody was serious about giving Harry the rest of the day off.

"Confringo!" Moody's real eye widened a bit as he knocked the blast aside. The wall behind him burst into flames. It would go out soon, but the heat would be a slight distraction to the auror.

Moody sent a streak of purple flames, Harry recognized as the hidden agony curse. It destroyed organs without breaking the skin. Pomfrey needed days before she'd gotten him sorted the one time he'd gotten hit with it.

"Expulsio!" Harry yelled, quickly followed by "Avis and Oppugno!" Birds shot out of his wand to dive bomb Moody even as he blocked Harry's first curse. Moody's favourite shield didn't do well against alive organisms. Harry didn't have time to revel in Moody's screech as one actually managed to pop his mechanical eye out of its socket, because the man promptly sent an entrail-expelling curse.

**"Picapermoveo!" Ravens shot out this time, aiming for anything shiny. Harry didn't let the sight of their scattered remains bother him, sending a conjunctivitis curse.**

**"**Birds again, boy?" Moody sneered. Sending a silent stunner.

Harry barely paid attention to the weak spell, attention on Moody.

"Reducto!"

"Furnunculus!"

"Incarcerous!"

Harry waited for the ropes to come close to him before casting

"Funisadanguis!" And the spell turned back on it's caster, snakes hissing and biting at Moody.

Sadly they didn't even get very close before Moody killed them off with a blasting curse.

"Reducto!" Harry shouted, quickly followed by "expeliarmus!" and another "Reducto!"

He kept pushing and pushing. He gave the old auror no rest. No time to think. Still, he knew it would only last so long. Moody was powerful and he had stamina. On top of that Harry had been performing spell after spell for two hours already.

"Percutio." He sent a percussion hex but wasn't surprised when it rebounded.

"Peremptum!" Moody slashed a bright white, destructive flash and Harry didn't even try to block it, just dodge as far out of the way as possble. There was a new window, showing the next classroom.

"Letumanus." A hit. Moodies face went white with pain as his right hand shrivelled up. He just managed to transfer his wand to the left before it hardened into an impossible knot of dead flesh. And now Moody was in pain… and mad.

"Epiraediumdeflamma!"

Even now Harry thought that the spell looked impressive. Unfortunately for Moody, Harry had also injured the man's right arm before and knew he had significantly less control over the firewhip with his left. Moody put it himself without even coming near Harry.

"Tergum." Harry had a plan developed, now that Moody was injured and limited to spells that used less control. He just needed to egg him into..

"Exustio!"

There it was. The fire curse that had caught Harry so many times.

"Plumbeusmare." A thick wall of water erupted in front of him. Upon contact Moody's curse caused steam to richochet back and blast the man off his feet. But he wasn't done. "Lodicula."

The remaining water wrapped around Moody. A leaden blanket made of water, forced him to remain on the ground. Where he might have avoided the stunning hex.

"Well?" Harry demanded. "Well?"

Moody struggled for a minute, maybe two before nodding his head.

"Let me up. The match is yours."

"Exalant." The binding water turned to mist and evaporated within seconds.

Harry didn't offer to help the man up. At best it would be refused, at worst the man would do something and Harry would be in pain. It only has to happen once for Harry to learn his lesson.

He breathed out, his limbs felt like jelly. He'd won. Won. Harry had managed to fight the man to a standstill before, mostly out of luck than anything. But he'd won today. He was done.

"I knew you were holding back."

Harry's elation abruptly drained. "I wasn't sir."

"No?" Moody quirked an eyebrow, the empty socket beside it gaping open horrendously. "Then how do you explain this?"

"I've been studying water charms, sir. For class. You haven't used any fire hexes this week."

"A likely story." Moody bend and picked up his mechanical eye. "What are you luffing about for? Clean this place up."

Harry was quick to do so. The bodies of his birds and snakes were banished. As magical constructs, the blood went with them. It took more time to repair the walls, which were damaged badly, especially the giant hole. But Moody had Harry learn this summer. And Harry began the arduous task of rebuilding the walls and layering the protective spells on top of them. In his periferal vision, he could see his instructor transfigure a chair and sit, drinking heavily from his hip flask.

When he was done, he looked to Moody who only scowled at him.

"Well." He growled. "Get to it? Outside. I want twenty laps around the lake."

Harry knew he shouldn't argue. He knew there was no point.

"But sir." He had to try. "You said-"

"I know what I said, boy." Moody's lips twisted into a cruel smirk. "We're done for the day. Done duelling. It's time to work on your physical preparedness, boy."

He'd known better. He'd known it was a trick. It didn't make him any less disapointed as he ran down the steps.

Moody came out around his fourth lap, probably stopped to pick up something to eat, judging by the sandwich in his hand, as well as more booze. After running he swam. Forcing his aching arms to move himself throug the water. Fighting the current that was surprisingly strong even this close to shore.

Even then he wasn't done. Moody spurred him on for jumping jacks and weird flexibility drills with stinging hexes when he moved too slowly.

"I suppose that's enough for the day." Moody nudged Harry's prone body with the toe of his boot. "That was pathetic Potter. Even my green recruits do better."

Harry wasn't even a recruit, much less a green one.

"Learn the spells in chapters six through nine."

That got him up.

"Sir," Harry protested. "By tomorrow? There's no way I can do that. That's going to be atleast eight spells, probably more."

"Oh I know." Moody said. "It's punishment, Potter. For holding back before today. Learn them or you know the consequences. I'll be having a word with the headmaster abou this as well.

What could he do? There wasn't any choices here. There weren't any options. He just had to try as hard as he could, knowing that he would be punished tomorrow anyway. Just like Moody intended.

…..

Harry just barely managed to drag himself down for supper. The sight and smell of so much food when he hadn't eaten anything today and barely a few morsels yesterday made him nausious.

Ron wasn't helping either. The redhead had drizzled some sort of red sauce all over his chicken and was talking and chewing at the same time.

"You should have see it Harry," the boy was mumbling between bites. "Neville was awesome."

"Yeah?" Harry turned to Neville, anything to stop looking at the red bits of flesh being ground up.

"It wasn't anything." Nevilled shrugged. "Justin was just being a prat."

"He was having a go at you." Ron added. "Kept on about how you think you're too good for us now that you went up against You-know-who."

"Oh." Harry shrugged. Justin Finch-Fletchley was a prat, and he was always the first one to insult you when your back was turned or to your face. "What did you do?"

"He was being so loud about all the reading he'd done this summer," Neville rolled his eyes. "So I duelled him."

"Knocked him back in five seconds flat, mate." Ron crowed, accidentally spilling his cup. Neville smiled, looking a bit proud. "Harry, you gotta see the stuff we got at Hogsmeade, mate. It's awesome."

Harry felt like he had at the beginning of the year, when Ron and Hermione told him about their great summers. Jelous. Here they were having the time of their lives while he was being worked to death and feeling so sick that he could barely keep down the small portion of steamed vegetables and rice he'd scooped for himself.

When Ron started in on a piece of ham, Harry couldn't take it anymore. Giving up on the rest of his food, he grabbed his bag. "I gotta go study."

"Harry!"

Ron caught up to him just outside of the great hall. Hermione was with him.

"What's up with you?" Ron yelled, "here we are, trying to make you feal better about being stuck here all day and you just up and leave."

"I'm sorry, Ron." Harry sighed. "I'm just tired. I think I'm coming down with something."

"Whatever." Ron huffed, looking at the door and then back at Harry. Evidently deciding not to go back and finish eating. "You headed to the common room?"

"No," Harry adjusted his bag. "The library. I gotta study."

"Harry," Hermione rolled her eyes. "You can't be studying like this all the time. It's ridiculous to say so."

"I am studying." Harry couldn't help but snap. "Moody gave me a whole crap load of stuff to learn for tomorrow."

"He barely assigns any homework in class." Ron snapped back. "Stop lying about how much work you've got. We don't believe you anymore."

"Lying?" Harry laughed. "I'm lying. I'm the one that's lying? Where do you get off? Why would I lie about something like that?"

"We don't know," Hermione said, eyes narrowed on Harry's face. "Why would you?"

"You know what?" Harry was too tired for this and he had too much work to do. "I'm done. Really. Believe what you want."

He was done.

….

Harry didn't know what he'd done to earn a reprieve. But Moody didn't do anything when Harry came back to him the next morning, only having managed to successfully learn and cast six of the ten spells in those chapters.

They didn't even duel. Moody ran him through his physical routine, a less intensive one than the day before and sat him down to go over tactics for a few hours. By eleven he let him go.

Harry still didn't understand until he was at lunch and an elf popped by with a message to go see the headmaster.

Great.

Harry made his way up to the headmaster's office. He didn't even need to knock on the door before hearing a soft "Come in Harry."

Harry looked around, noting that there were a few more things to look at since he'd been here last. Harry ignored the chair and went over to Fawkes, giving the phoenix a bit of a scratch at the base of his neck he knew the bird had trouble reaching.

"He's been missing you, I think. You haven't visited."

Harry flushed, when the phoenix added in a reprimanding little trill and head butted Harry's hand. Murmuring his apologies, Harry spent a few minutes getting the good spots before the headmaster pulled out a file from his desk.

"Come sit, Harry. Lemon drop?"

"No thank-you sir." Harry eyed the file. "Is that about me, sir?"

"Yes, indeed Harry. It is." Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles as he opened it and glanced at the papers inside. "Your quarterly marks, to be precise."

"And?"

"Most of it is quite impressive Harry."

Harry winced. Before he began his training, the headmaster had emphasized that Harry needed to have a good grasp of the basics. That included all of his Hogwarts' classes. Training with Moody was contingent on performing well in school.

"I have been working hard, sir."

Dumbledore hummed, flicking through some of the papers. "You've done quite well in Runes, Exceeding Expectations and Outstanding in both Potions and Charms. Very well done, Harry."

"Thank-you, sir." Harry had to admit that he'd been working ridiculously hard in both classes. Since defence used a specific branch of charms, Harry had come to the conclusion that being better at them, in general, would help him. It did. He'd always been pretty quick at picking up spells in defence, but there was no way he could have kept up with Moody's demands last year. Working with Malfoy was mostly responsible for his marks in that class. And with runes, he was just desperate not to get a detention.

"You also have Exceeds Expectations in transfigurations, healing, defence against the dark arts and creatures. And an acceptable in history of magic." This time Dumbledore did not sound particularly pleased. Harry waited as Dumbledore closed the file and sat back. "Harry, you've done quite well. Especially after all we've thrown at you."

Harry didn't say anything, knowing that there was a giant BUT to follow.

"However," close enough, "I wonder if we are expecting too much."

Harry swallowed. "What do you mean, sir?"

"That perhaps all this additional training is too much. Perhaps we should stop now."

Part of Harry wanted to agree. He was tired. Tired of lack of sleep. Tired of getting hurt all the time. Tired of never having time to spend with his friends. "May I ask why, sir?"

"Exceeds Expectations is a very decent grade. But we must look at this in terms of what you are understanding. A mark of eight out ten means that there are two questions you do not know the correct answer to. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"It is imperative that you understand the basics of magic, including our history, Harry."

"I have been studying, sir." Harry couldn't help but protest. "I know the answers, I do. Even in history. If B- if Professor Binns gave us anything else than essay questions on our tests, I would do loads better, I promise." He sucked at essays. Really he did. Most of his points lost were from grammar or spelling errors. Those he could correct if they were something to hand in and most teachers didn't care so much if it was a test. But Binns didn't care about that and he usually didn't bother with essays, just essay exams and quizzes.

"And you have been doing well. I know that Professor Moody is a difficult taskmaster. But why, with all this additional training, are you unable to maintain Outstanding in his class? It doesn't stand to reason, Harry. And Professor McGonagall is reasonably upset that you haven't been maintaining your previously solid Outstanding in her class as well."

That, Harry couldn't answer. He didn't know why he wasn't doing as well in McGonagall or Moody's classes. He didn't understand what they wanted. He performed the spells they wanted. He got all the information down needed for his essays and double checked his spelling and grammar. Maybe it's because he wasn't half copying off Hermione anymore? With Moody, he was pretty sure the man was just being vindictive.

"So," Dumbledore leaned forwards. "This is where we stand, Harry. Will you try harder to learn what we need you to? And do we need to stop the additional training with Professor Moody?"

This was it. His chance to stop. All he had to say was yes.

"No," Harry just couldn't do it. He couldn't let all those people down. The ones who depended on him, the ones he'd already let down. "I'll work harder. I promise."

"That's what I needed to hear." Dumbledore smiled and nodded, as though he'd to another decision as well. "Please come to me, Harry. For whatever reason."

"I will." Harry said, getting up. He felt stiff and even heavier than before. A wrinkled hand appeared before him, helping him up.

"Don't forget Harry," Dumbledore patted the hand and went back to the other side of the desk to sit again. "Friends make these hard times much easier to bear."

Harry thought of his fight with Ron and Hermione last night. And he wondered if that was true.

…..


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 8

Draco watched the grindylows swim past the window, a little one hissing at the students inside. Draco couldn't help it. He made a face back. And the little thing looked so affronted. He came closer, probably to bang on the window, but one of the older ones smacked him on the back of the head and dragged him towards the rest of the herd? School? Draco made a mental note to look that up.

"Teasing the mer-creatures again?" Blaise asked, joining him on the chesterfield.

"I never tease." That probably would have worked better if the little guy hadn't managed to rush back just then to make another angry face at Draco. He snickered, but flicked the curtain back into place instead of antagonizing him further. Sometimes during his spare time in the day, he liked to come down here and watch the life in the ocean. He shuddered to think or perfectly mundane other houses common rooms were. Yes, slytherin's were in the dungeons, but at least they got to look at something interesting no one else got to. "What is it?"

"What makes you think anything is going on?"

"You're too happy." Blaise absolutely sucked at keeping secrets. For a slytherin, he had a horribly open face. Especially when you knew him for years.

"Fine," Blaise sighed and pulled out a magazine.

"The November issue came?" Draco eagerly held out his hand, only for Blaise to pull the magazine back.

"Are you going to share?"

"Share?" Draco snorted, leaning forwards and grabbing it. "I bought it. It's mine.""

"Draco." Blaise pouted. "You know that only the elite members get it a week early. And you get all those extra centerfolds."

"You don't even have a subscription. You just steal mine." Blaise was quite cheap, he called it fiscal. It was ridiculous because the Zabini fortune was certainly nothing to sneer at.

"So? Why can't I read it now?"

"After I'm done with it." And then he'd leave it in the common room where it would be snapped up by someone else. Draco didn't care, so long as he was finished with it already. He opened the first page, ignoring his friend and his whining for a full two minutes before giving in. "Fine, get over here. But I'm not waiting for you to finish before I flip the pages and you're not to breath on me."

"Fine, fine." Blaise agreed.

Of course he would. They did this little dance every month. He was just getting into an article about the new innovations in broom manufacture when he was interrupted by a polite little cough.

"Yes?"

"L-lord Malfoy…" A little firstie looked nervously over her shoulder back at her study group. "I- I.."

"It's Heir Malfoy," Draco corrected her. "I won't be a lord for several months yet."

"Ah…. Yes." She licked her lips and tried again. "Heir Malfoy."

"She wants your help with potions." Pansy said, coming to sit down across from him.

The girl looked both relieved and irritated at Pansy's interruption.

"Is that so?" Draco made sure to direct his question to the girl.

"Y-yes." She looked back at her group again, before straightening. Good. Slytherin was many things, but kind to the weak was not one of them.

"Just you… Miss…?"

"Oh. P-Pentigrass. Annabell Pentigrass."

"Miss Pentigrass, did just you need the help or your entire group?"

"We all do." She managed this time without stuttering. "I-I'm sorry to bother you, but P-Professor Snape said…"

"You can ask any prefect for help." Draco nodded, snapping up his magazine from Blaises grip. No sense letting his friend get a good hold on it. He'd never let it go and Draco was unwilling to read his own magazine after Blaise had gotten his sweaty fingers all over it.

It didn't take long. Just a matter of finding the right page in their text book. When he returned, Blaise was grumbling and Pansy was giggling about how good he was with the children.

"I doubt very much she'd want to hear you call her a child," Draco observed, settling down again and reopening his magazine to the placeholder.

"Are you saying she's not?"

Merlin. Pansy was getting jealous over an eleven year old.

"No, I'm saying we hated to be called children when we were eleven."

"True," she stopped glaring at the first years. "Did you hear about Millicent? She got her hands on some second rate beauty cream and it bleached her skin in patches."

"Who was her supplier?" He couldn't help but ask and was relieved when he'd never even heard of them. Not that his top-brand products would ever damage his skin, but it was best to be careful. Even the best manufacturers sometimes tried to cut corners if they could get away with it. But then Draco found himself trapped in a gossip session with Pansy. As much as he wanted out of it, she really did have too much interesting information to walk away. Draco allowed Blaise to slip the magazine out of his hold, but shot the other boy a warning glance when he tried to get up. She was just switching to talking about Draco, when Vincent and Gregory lumbered up.

"I'm going to go fly for a bit." Tuesday afternoons were nice and lazy as his classes ended at two. "Want to come?"

"We've got to write that paper for charms," Vincent admitted. "Flitwick warned us that we got to do a lot better to stay in the class."

"I'll give you my notes." Draco promised. He refused to help them write their essays. But he didn't mind sharing his research and reading them over once or twice.

"Thanks, Draco." Vincent nodded. "I'll give you my chapter notes for history."

It was a fair deal. Vincent was particularly good in history. And Gregory was aiming at being some sort of zoo keeper if his parents let him. The amount of effort he put in helping them out with a few subjects was more than returned with their physical muscle when he needed it and their notes in two subjects he didn't particularly care for.

"Blaise?"

"Not me." Blaise shook his head, "I'll stay inside where it's nice and warm, thank-you."

"I'm taking my magazine with me."

Blaise harrumphed, skimming the rest of his article before handing it over.

"Still staying?"

"Yes," Blaise like the sport, but he was too much of a wimp to play it. "I'll pick warm and dry over wet and cold any day."

Draco would pick wet and cold any day, so long as it meant he got to fly. Grabbing his broom, he and his friends went to use the pitch before the Ravenclaws showed up.

* * *

Harry was miserable. He hadn't talked to Ron or Hermione in days. Word had gotten around too, and apparently he was coming off as the jerk. To top it all off, he had gotten an acceptable on Moody's chapter quiz. If Harry had any doubt about the man giving Harry crappy marks on purpose, here it was. There was no possible way that he deserved an acceptable, even and E would be pushing it. He hadn't gotten a single answer wrong. It was stupid and unfair. Especially when he'd just gotten spoken to by the headmaster for having merely 'excellent for anyone else' marks.

"Hey Nev," Harry greeted as he went to his bed for a quick lie-down. The only positive thing that had come from being on the outs with Ron and Hermione was that he'd managed to get ahead.

"Heya, Harry. You coming to D.A. tonight?"

"Can't." Harry grunted.

"Oh, training?"

"Y-what?"

Neville snorted. "Oh come off it Harry. Even if I hadn't overheard Ron and Hermione talk about it. It's pretty obvious."

"I'm not supposed to tell." Harry shrugged. "I suppose you're mad at me too?"

"Me?" Neville repeated. "No. Why would I be mad at you."

"Dunno. Everyone's mad at me. Or calling me a liar."

"Ron called you a liar." Neville surmised. "About what?"

"He thinks I'm lying about the extra homework Moody gives me. And that I'm pretending to study so hard. I'm taking seven NEWT classes. Even Hermione's only taking six."

"Well. If he never sees you working on it, how can he know?" Neville asked, reasonably. "I don't know where you go, Harry, but it seems like Ron is always waiting around for you or looking for you."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Well. Didn't that make him feel like a complete jerk?

Harry's alarm went off.

"Listen," he said as he gathered his stuff. "Can you tell Ron and Hermione that I'm going to look for him later? In three hours or so?"

"Sure."

Harry set off with a renewed jump to his step. Perhaps things were starting to look up.

* * *

Harry could hear someone arguing. It wasn't words, exactly, but the hushed hissed whispers sounded a lot like how Petunia yelled at him when she didn't want to wake Vernon or Dudley.

He was warm and so incredibly relaxed…

The next time he awoke, he actually opened his eyes. Just long enough to shut them again. Merlin, Madame Pomfrey must be mad, he mused. Because he could hear her yelling. Or was that still yelling from the last time he woke up?

Something must have alerted her because abruptly she cut off and he felt a gentle hand on his forehead.

"Mr. Potter? Harry? I need you to open your eyes for me."

He didn't want to. It was so comfortable. And warm. So warm.

"Open your eyes."

No. He was just fine here, thank you very much.

"Mr. Potter. Open your eyes." That gentle hand gave him a not so gentle tap on the cheek.

Groaning, Harry did as he was bid.

"There now," Madame Pomfrey smiled at him, but then she was shining a light in his eyes. "Keep them open, Mr. Potter. I need to check your pupils. And why do I need to check that?"

Harry thought a minute. Flexing his muscles carefully, as one learned when you ended up in the infirmary as often as he did. He felt… fine. Well. His body did.

"Because… I hit my head?" It was the only thing that hurt.

"And? What do the pupils tell us?"

"If I have a concussion?" Harry tried to stay still, but still ended up leaning back away from the light. "Pupils don't react properly when you have a concussion."

"Correct." The light went out, but Pomfrey's head was still one big sun spot. "You have to thank your hard head, Mr. Potter. Only a mild concussion. We'll be able to get rid of that right quick."

But if it wasn't bad… why had she been yelling at Dumbledore?

Harry would worry about it later, when there wasn't a manticor pounding away at his skull.

After he'd had his draught to correct the concussion, Harry was feeling quite better.

"Can I go back to my dorm now?"

"No. You're staying overnight. Tomorrow morning we'll see how you're doing."

"But…" Harry could see she meant it. She had that stiff jaw she used to use on him when he tried to weasel out early. He hadn't seen it since this summer though. "But it's only a concussion. And you healed it."

"Just a concussion?" she muttered, sitting him up and fluffing his pillows manually before laying him back down and tucking the blankets firmly around him. "You're staying overnight and that's that. I think you'll be missing classes tomorrow as well."

"But… Why?"

"Your body needs rest, Mr. Potter. And it's going to get it."

"Quidditch practice is tomorrow!"

"After dinner." She dimmed the lights around his bed. "We'll see how you are doing after three square meals."

He protested some more, until she threatened to cut quidditch out entirely. He settled down, already deciding that, should she not release him after dinner the next day, he'd sneak out. Skip quidditch practice indeed. What a horrible thought.

…

The next time Harry opened his eyes, it was seeing Ron sitting in a chair beside the bed, reading.

"Ron?"

"Harry!" Ron flushed, putting the book down low so that he couldn't see. "You alright mate? Madame Pomfrey said you're here all tomorrow too."

"I'm fine." Harry assured him. "You know how she is."

"Yeah." Ron agreed.

"What were you reading?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer when his friend hesitated.

"I er… hope you don't mind." Ron pulled the book up. "It's interesting though. I didn't know Moody was teaching you all about tactics and things."

"We just started." Harry said. "It's kind of cool. He doesn't really talk about it. I just do essays and stuff on the chapters he tells me to read. Sometimes he quizzes me."

"That's pretty cool," Ron agreed.

"Did you… I could lend you the one I started with. It's all about tactics the aurors took against Grindelwald." Harry offered, "and then this one too. I'm only half done, but Moody only really assigns a few chapters a week from it. So we could read it together, if you catch up."

"Yeah." Ron grinned. "That'd be great… but I thought you weren't supposed to tell us anything."

Harry shrugged. "I don't think this counts. It's not spells or anything. And I already gave you that list from before anyway. Did you have D.A. tonight?"

"Everybody's been getting really good at some of those spells." Ron said, "They've been asking after you, too."

"I'll try harder to come sometimes," Harry promised. "Ron… I was a jerk."

"So was I." Ron quickly cut in. "It seems dumb now. Hermione was all upset when she came in and you were all bruised up."

"Bruised?" Harry asked.

"You've got raccoon eyes, mate." Ron grinned, conjuring a mirror.

"That was pretty snazzy spell, Ron. Do it often?" Harry grinned as his friend punched him lightly in the arm and looked at himself. He looked terrible. His eyes were both black and he had a bandage around his head. "Cor. I look pathetic, don't I?" He poked at the bruise and was relieved that it didn't hurt. "Madame Pomfrey says I hit my head. It looks like my face was the part of my head that hit something."

"We should take a picture." Ron suggested with a laugh. "Tell everyone what Moody's been doing to you. Your fanclub would beat him with his own wooden leg!"

* * *

Draco snuck in just after he saw the gruesome twosome leave.

Potter was sitting, leaned up against a couple of pillows.

"I heard you tripped down the stairs again."

Potter looked up and grinned, before seemingly remembering he wasn't supposed to smile at a slytherin. "I was pushed."

"I'll bet." Draco nodded to the nurse who had ducked her head out of her office. She nodded back and went back in. Look at that. Most teachers would stay to supervise them. "Blaming others for your clumsiness is pathetic, Potter."

"So is pushing innocent bystanders down the stairs."

"It was one time…" Draco started, but then thought better about it. Either the gryffindor wouldn't realize he was joking, or he would and this would become… friendly. "You going to be out of here tomorrow?"

"Not until after supper. She says she might not let me go to quidditch practice."

Draco smirked. There was no way Potter was going to lay in bed all day tomorrow AND miss quidditch.

"I'll be late tomorrow." Potter suddenly declared. "Quidditch is done by six, but I promised Ron we'd work on something tomorrow. I won't be in the room until eight or so."

Draco wanted to make a snarky remark, but he sort-of appreciated the information. He didn't want to wait around for Potter to show. "So lend me that book of yours now, then."

"I don't have it here." Potter said, almost sounding guilty. "I thought you were going to buy one."

"I ordered it. They don't have any in stock. It's not going to arrive for weeks, maybe even months." And Hogwarts library didn't have one.

"Maybe I can get someone to get it for me by tomorrow." Potter offered.

"When? I'm not coming back here multiple times because your friends fail to show."

"After lunch. You have a break, don't you? I'll ask Ron to drop it off when he stops by at lunch."

"That'll do." Draco hesitated. "We're getting assigned our partners for the Runes project tomorrow."

"And?"

"Did you think about what you wanted to do?"

"Yeah." Potter nodded seriously. "I really want to look into wards."

"Wards?"

"I think it's important to know how to do them." Potter shrugged. "You?"

"I… I was thinking wards as well." Draco admitted. "Probably half the class is."

"I don't know. Hermione wants to learn how to make wizard space."

"You're joking." Draco had to laugh. "That takes years and years, Potter. There's no way she can manage that."

"Hermione's pretty smart. She'll do okay."

Of course, Draco scowled, mood suddenly turning sour. Of course Potter would believe that the mudblood could achieve the impossible. What would make it worse, is if she actually managed it.

"Just get that book here tomorrow, Potter." Draco demanded. "Or you can say goodbye to all that extra runes help I've been giving you.

"Sure, Malfoy." Potter agreed, amicably. "Hey, do you have a second? I was wondering about that Rune she was talking about last class. The Egyptian one…"


	9. Chapter 9

Author's note: Hello. Just a reminder that Harry is in advanced Runes NEWTs, so there aren't very many students on purpose. The others are in the regular NEWTs class. Short chapter. Will get another one out very soon. Everything should be picking up in the story now that I've got my important character and plot base there to add on to.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 9

Hermione sat in her regular seat, centre column, two seats back. It started out as her compromise when she and the boys had started sitting together in first year. She liked sitting in the front and they liked sitting in the back. Now they sat in the middle, together. It was pure luck that she no longer needed to crane her neck to see around the teacher when they wrote notes on the board.

Hermione glanced at the empty seat next to hers. It was Harry's seat. As much as she had been upset to learn that he'd been hurt, it was a miracle that it had taken this long. Harry was the most accident prone boy she'd ever met. He was always tripping over his own feet, like boys often did when they grew inches in a short period of time. It was probably why he got hurt so often when he was learning duelling with Professor Moody.

When Professor Synastra came in, Hermione straightened, quill poised. With the little tiff between the three of them over after Harry apologized, she was eager to get off on a good start. That meant getting the best notes she could so that Harry didn't miss a thing while he was stuck in the infirmary.

"Class." Synastra smiled at them all, "I'm sure you are all aware of the sixth year assignment. "

She tossed up a stack of parchments and the sheets levitated to each desk. Hermione skimmed it quickly. This project was worth fifty percent of their final grade and made up of three major essays, each with letters of intent regarding subjects they wanted to study and the final, practical, demonstration Synastra will do privately.

Hermione raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Excuse me, Professor, but why do you test the practical privately?"

"Ah, excellent question." Synastra nodded her head. "It is for many reasons. Sometimes the demonstration goes wrong and the results can be dangerous. It can hinder both myself and the presenters when there is a crowd of students and the project may get a more or less favourable mark than it deserves. Also, rarely but it can happen that a student comes up with a truly creative an innovative creation. In 1957 Gertrude Murphy created the scribelous quill in her seventh year. Unfortunately, she presented it in class and a student whose family was very invested in the market stole her design and patented it as his own. The poor thing could have made a fortune. The court system was not very fair towards muggleborns during that time."

Hermione sat back, satisfied if disappointed. While she knew her, and Harry's, project was going to be brilliant by the time she was done, she would have liked to see what the other students created. Now it looked like everyone was going to keep it a secret. Just in case.

"Your letters of intent are due in next week. No more than six inches. Remember. The first research essay will be very general. If you desire to recreate an Egyptian ritual six months from now, your first essay will be on the differences and similarity of all rituals. A minimum of ten resources listed on the letter of intent, twenty for the actual paper due in six weeks. Your textbook is not considered to be an appropriate reference."

That was fine, Hermione already had been doing some 'light' reading on the subject since this summer. She'd ordered a couple books to read while on the planes and trains travelling with her parents and continuing her research since school started. She was just going to have get Harry caught up.

"After I've assigned you partners, you'll have the rest of class to discuss your fields of interest and head to the library to do research."

Hermione nodded. She`d drop by the library to pick up a few volumes and then head off to the infirmary to work with Harry for a bit.

"Susan Bones and Michael Corner"

Hermione quickly jotted some things they'd need to cover.

"Seamus Finnegan and Hermione Granger."

Hermione's hand snapped up.

"Please hold your questions until I am done." Synastra said firmly, "Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. Zacharias Smith and Blaise Zabini."

Hermione put her hand up again.

"Professor," she tried to sound polite as she could. "I requested to be partnered with Harry."

"Yes, you did." Synastra put down her list. "But it's unfair to let one pair of students pick their partner, especially because it has been a policy of mine to assign them. The projects are often much more interesting this way."

"But we've already done a great deal of research on our topic," Hermione protested. Well, she had, but it sounded better if Harry helped too.

"Then I'm afraid one of you is going to be very disappointed. " Synastra turned to the rest of class. "Please make sure you have chapter seven reviewed in time for Monday's class. If you have any other questions or concerns I'll remain here during this period and you can find me during my regular office hours otherwise."

Oh. Hermione certainly did have questions. She caught Malfoy picking up the assignment parchment from Harry's desk.

"What are you doing?" She demanded, trying to snatch it back.

"I'm going to go find Potter." Malfoy said it slowly, as though she was an idiot. "As he's my partner for this assignment."

"He's not." Hermione protested. "I just have to speak with Professor Synastra and get this all sorted out. Go talk with Seamus. He'll be your partner."

"Right." Malfoy raised an eyebrow at her. "That's just dumb, Granger. You think you're the only one who asked for someone specific? Get a clue. She's not changing her mind."

With that, he snapped the parchment up and left the classroom.

Hermione tried to change the professors' mind. She argued with her for nearly twenty minutes.

"Miss Granger," the runes professor sighed. "Please stop wasting our time further. Now, Mr. Finnegan has been very patient, waiting for you to finish. I won't be changing your partner, so I recommend you make the best of things."

"But-"

"Hermione," Seamus called. "She said no. Let's go. We barely have half of class left."

Hermione looked at her irritated teacher and then back at her equally irritated classmate and decided that, for today, it might be best to give in. All wasn't lost, after all. She still had all her research and Seamus was fairly intelligent. He'd gotten into this class all on his own. It might even work out for the better that she wouldn't need to explain nearly so much of the basic theories like she would have had to for Harry.

"So." Seamus started. "Me mum's family are all metal crafters. They make things like jewelry and watches mostly, but it was me Uncle Donal that made Professor Moody's eye. I know we won't be able to make something so complicated. But an arm or a leg. The basic ones aren't so bad. It'd be real brilliant if we pulled off a new design. I was lookin at a some books on 'em at the muggle library in London. The ones with robotics. I think we could do it by modifyin' one o Uncle Donal's designs."

As Seamus continued with describing his plans, Hermione couldn't help but be horrified. He'd done serious practical research on the subject. And it didn't look like he'd be swayed easily.

* * *

Potter was sleeping when he showed up. If he'd been looking as pathetic as he had been, Draco might have taken pity on him. Since he looked fine, Draco kicked the bed frame.

Potter woke and sat up quickly. Draco found it oddly gratifying to see him relax his grip on his wand, which he must have had under the covers, when he saw who woke him.

"Malfoy?" Potter yawned. "Is it lunch already?"

"It's not even half-passed ten."

"Shouldn't you be in runes?"

"Synastra let us off to go start researching with our partners."

"Oh."

Draco rolled his eyes when Potter looked around. "I'm your partner."

"Oh." Potter let that sink in. "Really?"

"Yes, really. Disappointed?"

"No, but Hermione-"

Ah yes. She had said a few things about partnering with Potter. Draco had also requested Blaise, in good part because he didn't think he could stand anyone else. Draco didn't know if he felt more sorry for Finnegan or Blaise. Potter was quite a relief in comparison.

" She threw a fit about it, I assure you."

"At the teacher?"

"Yes. It was loud. I heard her screeching all the way here." Practically.

"She wouldn't do that."

All this talk about the mudblood was irritating. "Calling me a liar, Potter?"

"No," Potter denied, looking a bit confused. "But Hermione wouldn't… not to a teacher."

Ah, the doubt stemmed not from the person giving the delivery or even faith in the mudblood herself, but Potter's knowledge of Grangers… well renown sucking up abilities.

"Everybody was there, Potter." Draco shrugged. "Now, you said you wanted to do wards?"

"Yes," Potter nodded, moving with the switch in topics.

"Well, what do you know about them?" Draco didn't want to be stuck practically hand feeding information to the other boy like Granger planned to.

"I've read up, a bit, on wards on peoples houses," Potter started.

The 'little bit' turns out to have been a lot. With all Draco had learned this summer and the decent amount Potter had studied on his own over the years, it was obvious where their final project was headed. They'd already managed to figure out who would research what for the first paper. Altogether an exceptionally productive meeting. Within twenty minutes Draco was packing up his things, including the transfigurations text Weasley had dropped off after breakfast.

"Why did you bother learning so much about them?" Draco had to ask. It didn't make any sense with the image he had of Potter. The old Potter didn't care about anything but defence, the new Potter didn't have time to devote himself to learning another subject unless it was for class.

"My parents were under fidelius when they died. And my aunt has a strong blood ward on it. I was curious." Potter shrugged, "It's not like I researched it all the time. Just read a chapter here and there since my second year. What about you?"

"Me? I know a bit about everything, Potter. After all, I was raised in this world."

"Ron doesn't know very much about wards, or Neville."

Of course Potter would pick two of the biggest dunces in their year. Draco refrained – just barely – from saying it out loud.

"The wards on the manor were upgraded this year."

That earned him an odd look.

"What?"

"I… never mind."

"What is it Potter?"

"I heard a rumour." Potter shrugged. "It's nothing. Never mind."

"What rumour?"

"About your family." Potter bit his lip, visibly gauging Draco's reaction. "That you've decided to go…. Neutral."

Oh. That. Well, he expected it to get around eventually. Draco wouldn't have been surprised to know that the ravenclaws had heard about it or even the hufflepuffs. But gryffindors would normally just think such a thing was false.

"Despite what you might think," Draco drawled, bucking the straps on his bag and standing straight, draping the strap over his shoulder. "Malfoys have almost always been neutral. With the head of the family placed in Azkaban, the heir is expected to return to our traditional views."

"He won't be happy about that." Potter's tone was sombre. "He'll think of it as a betrayal."

"Hence the wards. Really, Potter, do catch up."

"If… if I can help-"

"Help?" Draco laughed scornfully. "That's ridiculous Potter. And you know why? It's not that you put my father in prison. It's not even that we've been rivals since first year. Look at yourself. How can someone who keeps letting themselves get pushed around and hurt by a couple of old men help my family at all? Don't be an idiot."

* * *

"Don't be an idiot." Harry repeated to himself, not moving from his bed as Malfoy stomped out of the room.

It was laughable really. What could he do? Nothing. He couldn't do anything.

He'd offered to help Malfoy, off all people. And all it had done was shown him how pathetic he was.

Harry didn't even know what he could do to change that. All he knew was that he needed to get training and this is the way he'd been told he could get it. Harry didn't even expect to survive going up against Voldemort. He just hoped that, when all this was done, he could take the bastard down with him.

What could he do to help Malfoy?

Nothing.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 10

Severus didn't even have time to react. One minute he was in the cupboard as usual, the next it had grown so uncomfortably small that it felt like a physical strain on his mind. There was nowhere to go but out.

Severus took a couple of deep breaths, regaining his balance after having been pushed out of Potter's mind for the twentieth time that evening. The boy was likewise taking a few breaths to centre himself, but he nowhere looked nearly as taxed as he had been for… nearly every one of these sessions to date.

Potter had shown signs of improvement on Monday, after having eaten a decent sized meal (for once) before their 'tutoring' session.

"Legilimense." Again he was rejected from the boys mind. Even faster than the last time. And Severus felt an odd sort of anger take hold of him. Odd, because it wasn't necessarily directed at Potter.

That he had improved so drastically since then and the only difference was one day of bed rest as well as regular meals? Initially he'd been willing to put the blame on the boy. It wasn't precisely rare for teens to decide that they are fat and go on crash diets which develop into eating disorders. Less common for boys, but Potter was a seeker and needed to be light and swift in the air.

However, he'd observed part of Moody's lesson with the boy last Saturday. It had been ridiculous. He watched the man antagonize the boy into working harder and faster. For hours. Severus brought it up to the headmaster. He was given assurances that Moody was a 'harsh, but fair' taskmaster. Severus wasn't so certain.

And here it was… proof. He was aware that Potters lesson with the ex-auror yesterday had been supervised by the nurse. He'd stepped in on that lesson and seen a much different Alastor Moody teaching in a way that Potter was definitely not used to. If the lessons had been all like that one, as Moody claimed, then why was Potter doing so well tonight?

Severus could not do much about the training Potter received. He could, however, correct something else.

"Do you understand now?"

"Understand?" Potter repeated, "I think I'm getting a better hang of it, sir."

"Not occlumency, you idiot child." He snapped. "Rest. Food. How much have you improved upon sleeping more than a few hours and eating more than a handful of food each day?"

"Er… a lot, sir." Potter said, looking a bit embarrassed.

"A lot." Severus mocked. "You are leaps and bounds from that snivelling wretch you were a week ago, Potter. I will not have my time wasted anymore. You will attend each meal, every day. For every meal that you miss, will be a detention and a twelve inch essay on nutrition."

"You can't-"

"You'll find I can." Severus smiled his nastiest smile. The one that had succeeded in making a first year wet herself early in his career. "Madame Pomfrey will also be expecting you after dinner each day, for a nutrition draught. Now get out. Starting Monday we will be working on removing that pathetic crutch which won't handle anyone trying particularly hard to enter your mind."

Potter looked an interesting mixture of shocked and enraged. The door was slammed behind him so hard that the empty vials and beakers shook a bit.

Severus's smile softened into something more amused. He hadn't managed to rile anyone up that badly in weeks. Perhaps now was a good time to patrol the halls. There was a particular spot that ravenclaws liked to go near the library. If he was going to brew potions tonight, why not have a few featherbrains clean up his mess?

* * *

Draco absolutely refused to work on any homework or anything related to school today. He'd shown up at his and Potter's room because they'd agreed to meet and work on the runes project. But he didn't want to. Screw that. He'd just settled himself into the extra cushiony spot on the chesterfield nearest the fire, a novel in his hand when Potter came in.

"Not working today." He declared. "I got Pierest's newest novel."

"You got a book?"

"Not just any book," Draco sniffed. "An advanced copy."

"Oh…" Potter came and sat down next to him. "What's it about?"

"It will sound stupid if I describe it." Draco knew, because he'd tried to describe the plot to his mother once. She practically patted him on the head as she went back to her 'proper literature'. "You just have to read the first one and see if you like it."

"Could… could I borrow it?"

"Only if you stop talking." Draco had read the same line five times already. It was annoying. Beside him, Potter settled himself down and pulled out… homework, of course. Potter didn't seem to do anything else these days. He was boring. Draco continued on for a bit, but then he was still re-reading the same paragraph. He was concentrating too much on the boy beside him. With a sigh, he put it down. "So… what are you going to do about Moody?"

"What do you mean?"

"Moody." Draco repeated. "Are you just going to stay that man's punching bag, or what?"

"I'm not-"

"You are!" Draco insisted. "It's like you're a dog that crawls back to him after he whips you. It's pathetic. What happened to the idiot who wouldn't keep his mouth shut in front of Umbridge? The one that started up that defence club because she wasn't teaching us anything?"

"Hermione thought of that."

"She didn't do it herself though, did she?" Draco asked, already knowing the answer. Granger was an idea person in their group. Potter was the one for action.

"Why do you even care?"

"I care because this isn't Harry Potter. This person you're being is practically his antithesis! What happened to your spine, Potter?"

"I need the training." Potter snapped.

"Then take the training," Draco snapped back. "That doesn't mean you have to take all their bullshit too. Aren't you supposed to be their bloody saviour? They'll bloody give you all the training you ask for, how you ask for, so long as you're smart enough to ask!"

"It's not that simple!"

"It is! You're just too blind to see it!"

"I can't risk it." Potter stood, his face red. "I can't go out there and not now enough to keep someone else from dying. I can't think of me first."

"And this… training," Draco couldn't help sounding derisive. "It gives you that? It seems to me that all it gives you is a bunch of broken bones. Your falling apart, Potter, and it's because Moody is sadistic and gets off on hurting you."

"Says the snake who has been getting off on hurting me for years!" Potter yelled back, heading to the door. "Fuck it. I'm gone."

"That's right!" Draco sneered. "Act like the coward you are. Run away, little gryffindor."

"Malfoy, you've never stood firm in your life."

"At least I don't just roll over to be fucked after their done hitting me around."

There was a release of power and Draco was actually pushed back. He fell, but couldn't force himself upright again.

"You want to know what Moody has been training me?" Potter asked, his voice suddenly calm. "He's been training me to eviscerate death eater scum. He's been training me to be able to literally turn you inside out, but keep you alive so that I can literally play your nerves like a harp. I don't even need a wand anymore to cast the spell that will slit your neck, I've cast it so many times."

It should have been frightening, or at least creepy. Draco, however, was turned on. Power had always attracted him. And, especially recently, Potter just resonated with it. Whenever he wasn't falling down from lack of sleep or whatever Moody did to him.

"Then stop acting like a flobber worm and grow a spine, Potter." Draco gasped out, hoping against hope that his robes hid more than they showed. It was shameful, and he would have slapped himself silly not four months ago. But… Draco had come to terms with it. Potter was… attractive. "It's not advanced Arithmancy, when your hurt, leave. Fuck. I've watched you fight him. So many times. He likes to hurt you, Potter."

The pressure had eased off his chest and Draco was able to sit up, but stayed sprawled on the floor. Bringing one knee up to hid his predicament, Draco nonchalantly rested an arm on it as well.

"Why do you care?" Potter asked again.

Why did he always ask that? Draco didn't even know if he really did care. He was just tired of seeing the other boy get hurt. Potter had become… tolerable these past weeks. And it was just… wrong to see him without the fire that Draco had seen ever since first year.

"Because. Because someday I might need you. My family might need you. Merlin, the school might need you. And you can't be there because you let Moody make you useless."

That was close enough to the truth. Draco refused to even think beyond that.

When Potter made to leave this time, Draco didn't stop him.

* * *

"Where do you think you're going, boy?" Moody growled as Harry stopped firing spells at the targets and turned to go.

"Breakfast." Harry tried for respectful, but the auror sure didn't take it that way.

"You haven't earned breakfast yet, boy." Moody's wand snapped out and the door slammed shut. "Get back to work."

"Madame Pomfrey and Professor Snape said that I'll get detention for every meal I miss." Harry easily opened the door. After so many months of repairing this room, the inherent magic in the stones was mostly his now anyway.

"Are you… Are you talking back to me, boy?"

"No, sir." Harry said, even as he was walking to the door. He reached out with his magic and kept it open even when Moody would have closed it. He also side stepped a crippling pain curse. "I'll be back in half an hour, sir. Right after breakfast."

"Oh no… you won't. The only way you're leaving this room, boy, is through me."

As warnings go, that one was pretty clear.

Harry put up his strongest shield and started walking forwards. He wasn't going to fight. He was just going to go for break-

"Cruc-"

Harry jumped aside, realizing that it was a trick too late. He'd dropped his concentration. Dropped his shield. He tried to get it back up, but Moody was in full form once again.

"If you can't even defeat an old man," Moody taunted. "How are you going to beat You-know-who?"

"I don't need to beat you." Harry bit out, readying a number of water-based attacks that he'd learned from Flitwicks' book. He'd really have to give the man a present of some kind for its' use.

The heavy mist and the leaden water blanket worked surprisingly well against the man. Harry hadn't expected that. But it was just like before. With Moody on the floor, the watery sheet over him.

"Release me." He ordered.

Harry was going to do just that when a voice, suspiciously like Malfoy, whispered in his ear. 'When are you going to grow a spine?'

"I think not." Harry announced cheerfully, stepping away and ignoring the absolute rage on Moody's face. "I need to go for breakfast or I'll get a detention. I'll be back soon."

That half-an-hour may have stretched out into a full hour.

The knowledge that Moody was lying on the floor, immobile, growing angrier and angrier every second should have made Harry afraid or sick. Instead, he could see Malfoy smirking at him from across the hall and he got to listen to Dean tell a really funny story involving a wizard, a mermaid and a huffalump.

* * *

"You alright, mate?" Ron asked as Harry limped into the room.

"Fine, fine." Harry waved it off. "Moody had me running like crazy all over the grounds. I think I pulled something."

Ron made a face. "You know what, Harry? Keep your fancy training. I'll just steal your books from time to time. I-er-borrowed that book on tactics taking down Grindelwald."

"That's fine." Harry eased himself down onto his bed, sighing as he took the load off his feet. "Do you like it?"

"It's great." Ron enthused. "A lot of the stuff they used then, you wouldn't use now. Cause something better was invented or something. But most of its just learning how they think, you know?"

Not really. Harry read these 'brilliant' war tactic books and was interested in the stories interspersed within the book, about the aurors themselves. Most of the tactics were sort of lost on him as ridiculous. Why would you go for a full frontal assault and lose half your people? It didn't make any sense. He'd already talked this over with Ron, and the red-head explained, again, about the magic style the people were using. Harry thought it was dumb. Guerrilla warfare. It's how Voldemort had done so well in the last war. It's how they should be fighting him in this war. It was one of the few lessons he and Moody agreed on completely.

Moody. Harry shuddered. It might have been a mistake, poking the hippogriff, but the man wouldn't let him go and Harry couldn't afford the loss of time a detention would take.

After breakfast, Moody tried to run him ragged running and doing various drills. It might have worked, if he hadn't been doing that for months and Harry had managed to get enough sleep and food.

It did take considerably more effort to escape. Luckily, Harry did take that into account and started earlier.

The afternoon. That was… hell. Not one to repeat his mistakes, Moody took away Harry's wand, to work on his limited, but developing wandless spell repertoire. So far he could manage a shield, a stunner, expeliarmus and a cutting hex. Moody drilled him over and over and over again, until Harry could barely draw enough energy to lift an arm, much less cast a spell. He knew that there was no way he could manage to escape the man for a third time. And it looked like he had no intention of stopping the training session anytime soon.

He'd been saved by Madame Pomfrey. It may have made him feel a bit juvenile that his nurse came to collect him, but he was too appreciative of her presence to worry about it. And he managed to get away without any real injury. Other than a crampy leg.

After a bit of a rest, he felt ready to go. He didn't know if Malfoy would be in their room, but he really felt like he should go anyway. It seemed like he was always yelling at the boy or pissing him off. Last year, that would be normal. But it just felt wrong now. Especially with Malfoy trying to help him. They'd become… friends. Or something.

"Where are you going, mate?" Ron asked from where he was engaged in some sort of arm wrestling match with Seamus.

"I need to find Malfoy." Harry answered truthfully. "We need to get our runes project sorted out."

"Oh," Ron slammed Seamus' hand down, without that much effort and got up. "Want me to come with?"

"No, but thanks." Harry could see it now. Malfoy wouldn't start it. No, he never did. Technically. He might say something to get Ron's back up, but he rarely gave the first outright insult or curse. Maybe he'd mock Harry's intelligence, and then Ron would feel the need to defend him. Then Malfoy would insult Ron's intelligence, his family, his blood status…. And Ron would try to curse him. Today, he'd like a much more relaxed time of it. "We just need to hash out our parts so that we can just get our own work done and meet in the middle."

"If you're stuck with him, it's probably the easiest way, mate." Ron agreed. "Where will you be? In case he tries something?"

"Dunno," Harry admitted. "I'll have to find him first. But it should be fine Ron."

Malfoy wasn't there. Harry looked around the cold, empty room disappointed.

He didn't know why he'd even really thought the other boy would be here. It was Saturday evening. There'd even been rumours of a party going on somewhere.

"Pothead, get out of the way."

Harry startled a bit, shocked when he realized Malfoy was standing just behind him.

"You're here."

"Of course I'm here." Malfoy grouched. "Do you think I'm really going hang around those plebeians all night when I've got better things to do?"

As Malfoy didn't seem to have anything with him, Harry had to laugh.

"You came here to read, didn't you?"

"Just get out of the way," Malfoy pushed his way passed him. "You couldn't have started the fire? It's cold in here."

Malfoy cast several spells and the fire blazed, the lights flickered to life and the room warmed up significantly.

"What are you doing here anyway?"

Harry started. Oh right. "I wanted to… I don't know." Apologize wasn't quite the word, because he really didn't think that was needed. Thank was wrong too, because Harry didn't know if he would have acted all that differently without their tiff. Harry still would have tried to go for meals, but maybe he wouldn't have fought as hard or left Moody lying on the floor. It had been a bit funny. Like a prank, knowing that he was going to be punished for it later, it was still glorious to revel in the moment.

"I wanted your help."

"You always want my help, Potter. You're so ridiculously needy." Malfoy settled himself on the chesterfield and opened his book, about half way in.

"I want to prank Moody." There it was. The most brilliant and stupid plan ever.

Malfoy set his book down. "How?"

"I don't know how," Harry admitted, really it was a spur of the moment idea. "I just know what. His flask. He drinks from it constantly. Ogden's finest."

"And you want… a potion?"

"Or something," Harry agreed. "Maybe not a potion. Maybe just a curse on the flask itself? But his eye might see that."

"It might," Malfoy agreed, thinking. "But it might not. His eye doesn't tell him everything. There are spells that can be hidden easily from magic detectors."

"Or it could be a bunch of things." Harry added. "Small things. We charmed knuts before. I think I could slip something into his pocket. Maybe."

Suddenly Malfoy got a perfectly wicked look about him.

"What?"

"It's just a thought…." Malfoy mused. "I'd have to look it up. Maybe get the book sent from home."

"What?"

"A curse…. That's what they call it now. But it started out as a way to keep students from fighting…. My mother threatened me with it when I was young once."

"She threatened to curse you?"

"Oh please, Potter." Malfoy rolled his eyes. "She wouldn't have and it's easy enough to get rid of when you know what it is. But I looked it up. It's called a cruel intention curse. It actually stops you from being able to do something when you know it will harm someone. It fell out of style years ago. Moody might take days, or even weeks to figure it out."

"We'd curse his flask?"

"No, Potter. We'd curse him. The flask will be something else entirely, just to throw him off."

"Or something similar." Like a cheering potion combined with something else. "I could contact the twins. They send me their experimental pranks all the time."

"Do they?"

"Sure." Harry dug around in his robe pocket and came out with a wrapped candy. "No-hair Nougat. It makes you bald for about an hour."

"Mmm." Malfoy took the candy, absently touching his own blond hair at the nape of his neck. "And then your hair grows back?"

"More like reappears. The top wrapper comes off, so that it's just coloured foil underneath."

"Excellent." Malfoy quickly stashed the sweet away.

They discussed fun ways to torture Moody, such as making him even more paranoid than he already was and spelling a parrot on his shoulder that would continue to insult him. Or better, a ghost parrot, so he couldn't just kill it.

Eventually the warmth of the room got to him and the conversation lapsed. Too comfortable to leave, he just got a bit more comfortable as Malfoy opened his book to read. Eventually the warmth got to him and he drifted between sleeping and awake.

During a brief moment of muzzy wakefulness, he noticed that he was lying down, his head pillowed on something soft and warm.

"Malfoy…"

"What is it, Potter?"

"Is there something in my hair?"

Absent minded fingers pulled away abruptly, not that Harry noticed.

"Of course not, Potter."

"Oh…."

"Sleep Potter." Malfoy ordered and eventually that odd weight on Harry's head came back. So relaxing. "I'll wake you before I go."


	11. Chapter 11

Extremely short chapter, but I liked it too much by itself.

Chapter 11

Draco smiled smugly to himself as he read over the 'rough' draft that Harry had presented him with last night. They'd decided that it would be better for Harry to write the first draft of their paper, summarizing their research thus far into wards and Draco would finish. It was well done, complete with footnotes and references. All Draco had to do was rewrite it, add a few details that Harry wasn't that clear on and add diagrams. The paper was due in two weeks, plenty of time to perfect it.

Even though they'd studied in the same room and helped each other out a little this year, he was surprised by how well they'd gotten along this month. In an effort to finish their class assignments quickly and then work on runes, they had taken to meeting nearly every night in their room. Draco had been irritated at first by the inconsistent timing. Potter would arrive at nine in the evenings some nights or eight, or seven. Sometimes he wouldn't show until well after ten. But then Potter started to leave notes, to tell Draco when he'd arrive and he never seemed to expect Draco to show.

The very fact that Potter wrote him notes and times was enough reason for Draco to arrive or be there. Oh, he made certain that Harry knew the inconvenience he was being put through, but he was there. That night when they planned Moody's painful humiliation had been a solid turning point. Potter, Draco had decided, would be his. There was no reason why he shouldn't be. Potter was attractive and had proven himself intelligent. It was obvious the boy was powerful and it was equally obvious he didn't know what to do with it. And then there was the fact that he was loyal as a hufflepuff. An irritating directed at others, but one Draco would like directed towards himself.

Draco, in turn could provide what his hangers on couldn't or wouldn't; the sort of protection that comes with political clout. The Malfoy family had fallen slightly, true, but Draco had been taught from the cradle about politics, connections and intimidation. The media circus of the past two years shouldn't have happened. If Draco had been in Potter's shoes, they wouldn't have happened. The headmaster should have stepped in because his muggle relatives couldn't. In fact, Draco was very tempted to direct Potter to information regarding slander and legal requirements of the media.

He would certainly direct him to legal obligations of a professor.

Draco had detected the pattern early on. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends, Potter would arrive later, often exhausted and injured, requiring multiple potions and food to see him right. Draco didn't know what he did Mondays and Fridays, but he would be tired, and often irritable with a headache. Draco had gotten in the habit of acquiring food and hot chocolate to set the other boy to rights before they would either work on the wards in Slytherin's room, or their respective studies.

Last night though, he and Harry had been studying potions together on the couch. Draco had been reading and explaining the text to the other boy when he felt a weight on his shoulder. Looking down, he saw that Harry had fallen asleep. Shifting the other boy slightly, Draco had moved him into a lying position with his head in Draco's lap. Just like before, it had been an alluring feeling. Even in sleep, Potter's power gently rolled over and encompassed him and his 'pillow'. Draco had continued working on his essay, gently running his fingers through dark tangled locks until the boy woke up a few hours later.

"I fell asleep?" He asked, looking all sleep tousled.

"Yes."

Potter sat up, much to Draco's dismay. "Why didn't you wake me?"

Draco shrugged, pretending it was nothing. "You were tired. Do you feel better?"

"I… yes." Potter looked confused as to why Draco had let him sleep. "You…"  
"I?" Draco asked gently, knowing that Potter was still half asleep.

"You smell good." All at once, he seemed to realize what he was saying and quickly grabbed his things.

"Potter." Draco called out as the other boy was about to leave. Potter stopped at the door, turning around slowly, uncertain. "You forgot your book… Harry."

Potter took the preferred book, eyes wide at the informal use of his name. "I'll see you around… Draco."

Oh yes, Draco smiled to himself, reading the side note which told him that Harry would be waiting at their room to go over transfigurations with Draco.

Harry would be his.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 12

You smell good? Harry cursed himself out for the thousandth time. He couldn't believe he'd fallen asleep on the other boy last night. Again. It had happened several times now.

Harry ran a hand roughly through his hair and absently greeted Hermione as he sat down next to her in runes.

He vaguely remembered fingers running through his hair, lulling him back to sleep whenever he was on the verge of waking. And the scent. That calming, cool scent he now recognized as Draco's. He told him. Harry had told him and now he was waiting for the other boy to ridicule him. Draco – when had he started thinking of him as Draco? Draco hadn't even turned when he'd come in. Of course that might be because he was talking to Zabini.

Was he angry? He hadn't seemed angry last night. He'd called Harry by his name.

A rough poke to his side distracted him from staring at the blond and he turned his attention back to Hermione. She'd been talking.

"Harry," Hermione huffed. "I was asking you what you were doing for your project."

"Wards," Harry rubbed the spot. She always managed to get just between the ribs, even through two layers of clothes. "I told you weeks ago."

"I know wards," she rolled her eyes. "I meant the final project."

"Oh." They hadn't actually discussed that. Not really. Harry had a very clear idea of what he wanted to do, but probably so did Draco. Hermione wasn't particularly pleased when he told her that they hadn't decided yet. "What are you doing?"

"We haven't quite agreed on that yet." Hermione scowled over at Seamus. There had been a lot of quietly hissed conversations between those two and they complained a lot about the other to Harry. Harry just raised his hands and said that he was staying out of it. They were free to vent, but there was no way he was interfering on either side. That hadn't pleased either of them, but then, what could he do? Harry had already put his foot down about speaking with Synastra to try and convince her to let him partner Hermione. If Hermione hadn't convinced her, it wasn't like Harry would be able to either. Besides, he really liked his partner. Draco was… well… nice.

Just after class was over, Draco came over. "Meet me after you eat. We need to finish the paper."

"Alright," Harry agreed, hoping he didn't sound too anything. He didn't quite know where he stood with Draco right now. It was all just a big mess.

"You shouldn't let him boss you around like that, Harry." Hermione said. "He's always doing that."

"Like when?"

"In potions, he's always ordering you around."

"Well, I don't really mind in potions. Ron and I always thought Snape gave him good grades, just because. But Malfoy really knows his stuff. I've been getting solid O's ever since he partnered me."

"That's because Professor Snape can't give him a good grade and you a bad one."

Harry shook his head. "Sometimes he explains stuff when we're making a potion. Stuff I never knew, like why we rotate clockwise or anti-clockwise."

"Harry. That was covered in first year."

"We'll I never learned it." If Hermione knew it, Harry guessed that it was probably in the supplementary reading material not covered in the textbook. "Just leave it alone, Hermione. It's not like I listen to him when he says I should burn all your books."

"He told you to what?!"

Harry grinned to himself and set off for lunch with a bit of a skip to his step. He had almost forgotten how fun it was to tease her.

* * *

"This is really great." Harry murmured, glancing over the paper again. "I can't believe that you finished it already."

"That's not done." Draco said. "I don't like some of the wording, especially in our conclusion. I'm going to edit it again."

Harry thought it looked fine, but then fine to him wasn't necessarily brilliant to a professor. "Hermione asked what we were doing for a final project."

"And you told her, what, exactly?"

"That we hadn't really discussed it yet. We probably should"

"Very well. What do you want to do?"

"You're… you're letting me decide?" Harry gaped.

"Of course not. I'm simply letting you tell me what you want to do. If your idea sucks, then we'll have to go with mine."

"I want to make a set of portable wards." Harry said it in a rush.

"Portable how?" Draco frowned. "As in, you don't put then up, they're already attached to something?"

"A key stone." Harry leaned forwards. "Like in a home. We can have a key stone with strong, sustainable wards that don't use up a wizards power like a shield will."

"You want a ward to act like a shield?" Draco asked. "Harry, wards don't act like that."

Harry ignored the flush of pleasure he felt, hearing his first name from the other boy and focused on his argument. "Not a shield. A ward. The stone would be put on the ground and maybe an activation word. So it's grounded and stationary, like a ward. It can be more powerful that way. It would be good for emergencies."

"But then they'd be stuck in one spot, unable to get away."

"And if they're unable to get away, at least they'll have a powerful ward protecting them until help comes or they think of something better."

Draco nodded, still frowning as he thought about it. Figuring out if it's possible.

"Harry. I don't think it would work." Draco said after a few minutes. "If it's using corner stone wards, they'd have to be a form of blood wards."

"I know." Harry didn't see the problem. "They're not illegal, or anything."

"Of course they're not. Every pureblood has them. But they are deemed to be grey magic. I don't think Hogwarts wards would let us build them without setting off the dark magic alarms. We need a practical demonstration, not just theory."

Harry thought about that. He wanted to learn to make the ward. It was an idea he'd had for a couple of years now, not that he'd any clue of how to make it happen. He didn't want to give up now, especially when Draco looked like he might give in.

"I know a place." Harry said slowly. "But you'll have to give me your word you won't let anyone else find out about it."

"And you'd trust my word?"

"Please, you're Malfoy. If you swore on your name that Snape wears pink boxer shorts I imagine I'd believe you." It was true. Draco might lie, cheat and steel regularly, but he kept his word. Something that was very comforting to Harry as it seemed as though everyone else broke promises to him, but Draco never did. Whether good or bad, Draco never did.

"Very well. I won't tell. Seems like I'm keeping a number of things to myself for you, Harry."

"You'll think this is worth it, trust me. I'll be back in ten minutes." Running to the Griffindor tower, he tiptoed past the still partying griffindors, collecting and shrinking his broom. Getting back to the Malfoy, he grinned and motioned for the other boy to follow.

Harry led them to the girls lavatory, thanking all that he knew when it was empty. No Myrtle.

"A girls lavatory, Potter?" Draco asked in disbelief.

"No, what's under the girls lavatory." Harry corrected. Turning to the tap and hissing 'open'.

"Harry." Draco gripped his arm as the stones rearranged themselves to reveal the tunnel leading down into the chamber of secrets. "Is this what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is?" Harry asked, unshrinking his broom. "Do you want to hop on? It's a long drop."

* * *

He was right. It was a long drop. Draco felt his stomach clenching all the way down until they reached a wider tunnel. Harry landed, almost absently grabbing Draco's hand as he led him around a pile of rubble. Were those snakeskins over there? Draco held on tighter and Harry just smiled at him.

"Through here."

There was a giant door. How had he missed that? And those carvings! Draco got to briefly appreciate the fantastic snakes and sculpturing before the boy hissed. Oh, it was wonderful. He'd seen the Dark Lord once, heard him speak parceltongue to his snake. Harry's was nothing like that evil, slimy tone. Harry's was deep, and musical and it tingled his spine, going all the way down to his… toes. Draco adjusted himself discretely as the doors slid open, revealing a massive cavernous room.

"I'm really here." He whispered, looking at the statue of Salazar Slytherin himself. He looked around. "Was there really a basilisk?"

"Oh yeah." Harry said. "There really was, the mouth on that statue opens, leading to the things' nest."

Draco looked at the statue again, slightly uneasy. "Are there any left?"

"No, I checked."

Of course he did. Draco looked around again and spotted several doorways. "Have you checked everything out?"

"Yeah." Harry shrugged, randomly pointing. "There's a potions lab through there, and a work room adjacent to it."

"Library?" Draco asked, it sounded almost too much to hope for.

Harry hesitated. "There is one, but its password sealed. And there are traps."

"And?" Draco demanded, "the books?"

"Well see." Harry finally said after a few uncomfortable seconds. "Maybe after the holidays."

Draco wanted to stomp and order the boy to show him. He wanted to go and find it for himself. Those books would be so rare Draco didn't even have to see them to start salivating at the prospect of reading them. His fingers itched to get his hands on them. To read them. To later be able to harass Sev that he'd read books from Salazars private library. Ooh. That would be good. But he calmed. Harry had already given him an extreme leap of faith, just taking him down here. If all went according to Draco's plan, Harry would be his soon anyway. And so would the books.

"Have you read any?" he asked, instead. "Have you looked through them?"

"Some… the ones in English are in old English and a bit hard to decipher. We're more advanced in spell making in many ways… but…."

"But?"

"There is a reason he was one of the four founders." Harry said with a shrug, oddly enough satisfying Draco.

"Show me the workroom." He followed Harry as he made his way to the far side of the wall, where deep green curtains hung, covering the stone. Pushing aside one, Harry hissed and the wall opened. Draco slowly entered, looking around to see large workbenches, with several books on them. Going up closely he could see that they were modern. "You do your homework down here?"

Potter flushed. "Sometimes."

Spying a book regarding dark hexes, Draco understood why. If Harry practiced the darker arts down here, than he mustn't be worried about a few blood wards. It also made sense, now, why he'd never seen the other boy study for defence or his 'lessons' with Moody.

"Will they wonder how we managed to construct the portable blood wards without being noticed?" Draco wondered out loud.

"Blood wards are grey." Harry shrugged, starting to unload books from his backpack. "Why would we know that they would start an alarm? It's not our fault that they didn't."

Draco grinned. Harry was starting to sound like a slytherin. "Okay." He started going through the papers. "We'll want them to be as strong as we can make them, but if they're just stones, someone would recognize them and be able to destroy them.

"Unless we go with the peculium ward, which is meant to encompass the home and gardens of a house." Harry reminded him. "Then we'd only need one stone and it would be safe, in the middle of the ward.

"Those aren't transportable."

"But couldn't we take the idea of the ora ward and form it together with the peculium?" Harry asked. "Then we have the transportability of a border ward and the safety of proper cornerstone-based ward."

Draco thought about that. "That would require a lot of arithmancy, Harry. And you're not taking that class."

"I've learned a bit." Harry shrugged. "And you're in advanced arithmancy. I'll cover the runes, you'll cover the arithmancy, and maybe you can get extra credit for that class."

"And the written?" Draco demanded, then decided before the boy could open his mouth. "We'll keep to what we decided before. You write the first draft and I'll fix it up."

Harry hesitated for a mere second, then agreed. He'd better. A rough draft would just involve putting all their information together that they'd already acquired. Theories and premises they'd already discussed, with the project to back them up. And he'd have help with the runes. Draco would be doing much more work just trying to figure out the arithmancy.

Even though this was going to be hard, Draco was a little excited. This was something new. Something that hadn't been invented before…

"Harry."

"Yes?"

"You can't tell anyone what we're doing."

"What? Why?"

"Think. Harry."

"I am thinking. This could save a lot of people."

"It could," Draco acknowledged. "But remember what Synastra said about that muggleborn and her quill?"

"Yes, but it's not like we're going to sell this."

"We could. But that's not the point." Draco sighed. Just when he thought that Harry was beginning to think a little more slytherin. "I'm not asking you to wait years. Just until we're both seventeen. Then we could properly patent it as ours. No loopholes. It's not about the money. It's about getting credit for our hard work. And then we could decide who got access to the spell. Nobody could print it or distribute it without out permission. Or sell it." For the next one hundred years. It really was mostly about the credit. But that might add up to quite a fortune. Protective devices were pricey, but even the poorest witch would invest in them. And then Draco went for the final push. "Do you want to see death eaters using our wards against us?"

"No." Harry nodded his head slowly. "No, you're right. We'll wait, but we can still make more of them for people like the Weasleys or your mum."

"Only if they promise not to reveal anything about it." Draco had actually researched other cases of spells or inventions being created at Hogwarts. The headmaster and most of the professors had a bad history of telling someone who told someone else. And soon the spell or invention wasn't worth anything, or someone stole the idea.

After hearing that, Harry became much more confident. "They won't tell. I'll make them swear it, just in case."

Satisfied, Draco took the time to look around a bit more, but when he asked about exploring Harry shook his head.

"It's almost time for Potions."

Right. Draco cast a tempus. They really did need to get going. "But…" Slytherine's chamber. How could he just leave like this? Perhaps it wouldn't be too bad to miss one lesson. Just one. And how soon would they need to come back here? They wouldn't even start on anything besides theory for months.

"We could come back next week."

"Yeah?"

Harry smiled. "Next week? We're done our first essay, and if I can get ahead in my subjects then we could spend an entire evening going over some of those books."

"I'm holding you to that."

Draco cast one last look as the door closed behind him, but didn't make Harry pull him along as they exited the chamber. Harry could do that; after all, he was holding Draco's hand.

* * *

Severus Snape found himself panting as he again was pushed from Potter's mind. The boy was getting good. Very good. He didn't know what happened. But Potter now had something in his mind that he wanted to protect. Something that mattered more to him than his memories of his childhood – if you could call it that – or his friends and misadventures. Potter had a secret.

That was the only explanation for why he had improved so well. Severus didn't even find himself in the cupboard anymore. He just plain couldn't get in. Looking at the time, he noticed that only an hour had gone by and he debated keeping him to try again. No, he wouldn't waste his time.

"Come again tomorrow after your session with Moody," he ordered. "If you are in the hospital wing, have Pomfrey contact me. I wish to see you defences after you've been fighting."

Potter cringed, seemingly unaware that he brought his hand up to his side before nodding. "Yes, sir."

"Good." He dismissed the boy and contemplated the closed door. He had orders to report anything interesting to the headmaster. And this was interesting. What could Potter possibly have to hide? He would try again tomorrow, if the boy showed, that is. Severus scowled.

Taking the bottled potions he had for the hospital wing, Severus greet Poppy briefly before going to the heart of the matter. "What happened to Potter?"

She looked at him blankly for a second before scowling. "Harry Potter isn't coming to me except for serious injuries or questions about our class."

Severus had expected that to happen. When Poppy had told him that the boy had perfected bone mending and most minor injury healing, he had assumed that the boy would be frequenting the mending ward less. But he didn't think that it would actually be an enforced order. "Albus is allowing this?"

"Albus ordered it." She growled. "He spouted some crap about improving Harry's reflexes and healing spellwork. I wouldn't even know, except I see Harry in class and a diagnostic charm revealed some of his latest injuries."

The next day Potter showed up at his door, looking positively battered. Oh, he tried to hide it. But Severus could spot where his robes had been repaired, he could see the ill concealed limp, he could smell pepper up and a few healing potions on the boy's breath when he came up close. But despite this, he could feel the boys' power barely harnessed under his skin. Volatile and ready to lash out, Severus foresaw trouble and was tempted to cancel the lesson.

He was right. Potters shields were firm, and his power and mind lashed out when Severus tried to create cracks. After toppling over in his chair for the fifth time, Severus called a halt.

"You didn't search my mind." He noted when he caught his breath. Each time, he could feel Potter follow the connection back to his mind, but leave once contact was made. "Why?"

"What would I learn?" Potter shrugged. "What would it achieve?"

Severus observed the boy again for a few minutes before, calling for tea and a light meal. Although he knew Potter now ate regular meals, they were no where near the size a growing child should be consuming.

"Eat Potter," he ordered, taking a cup of tea and a biscuit for himself. Potter gingerly picked up a sandwich, but did not take a bite before casting a few spells on it first. "Checking if it's poisoned?" he sneered, then checked himself when Potter winced. "Please, Potter. If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn't have survived your first year."

"I don't think you would try to poison me sir." Potter said taking a bite and chewing slowly.

"Then why the spells?"

"The house elves have orders, sir." Potter finished the sandwich half, picking up another, he checked it again for poison. "From Professor Moody."

"Are you saying the house elves are under orders to poison your food?" Severus asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

"Just sometimes. Constant vigilance and all that." Potter shrugged. "Won't kill me, just a bit uncomfortable."

Severus' eyes narrowed. He remembered a number of poisonings in Potter's medical file. Several of which would have caused absolute agony and sever damage if not treated immediately. Taking out his wand he did a quick diagnostic charm and frowned when it came back. Recently mended broken bones, blood loss, the boy was dehydrated and undernourished. "Your training is going well then?" he asked after leaving to pick up a nutrient and hydrating potion.

"I've been working hard." Was all Potter said. "My grades seem to be improving."

"Remarkable that it only took five years to get you to pay attention to your studies." Potters grades had improved. Especially in potions, but he was assuming that was mostly due to being paired up with Draco. The two got along tolerably well, he'd observed. Potter keeping quiet and doing as he was told. He'd heard that the two had been partnered up in Runes class as well.

Draco. Severus was more worried about the boy than he cared to admit. The Dark Lord had been positively enraged when his plans for his own housing as well as monetary support had been thwarted. Fortunately, most of that rage had fallen upon Bellatrix for her failure.

Lucius would not be imprisoned forever and he'd been very vocal about his plans to present Draco after he turned seventeen. When he broke out, it was likely he'd see Draco's usurpation for the title as practical and would be remedied soon. Even if it wasn't the case, Severus was concerned his godson hadn't the will to defy his father. Then there was the inevitable capture Draco would either receive death or become a death eater. It didn't really matter which; both would eventually kill him. Draco hadn't the temperament to become a death eater. He would be crushed and broken by the dark lord.

Severus didn't know how to stop it without shedding light on his spy status. He'd tried dropping hints in the hopes that with Lucius being in Azkaban, Draco would be more ready for suggestion. But Draco had been adamant to him that his father would escape or be released from prison, that the Dark Lord would not leave him there. Suddenly irritated that he was spending so much time with this brat when he should be figuring out a way to save his godson, Severus abruptly banished the food and tea service.

"You have improved a remarkable amount at Oclumency." He sneered, "it's taken you just over a month what you couldn't achieve all last year, Black would be proud." He took pleasure in Potter's ashen flush, a reminder of his guilt and failure. "As such I see no reason to continue twice a week. You will come Friday evenings only henceforth. And perhaps even then, only every other week."

Really, he did it only to reduce the amount of time with the brat, but Potter looked so very pleased. No, relieved. Why? Severus could accept if it was a matter of not having to defend himself against legitimency twice a week. But he checked the boys defence during class and in the halls. Potter kept his occlumency shields up all the time.

"Am I to come this Friday?" Potter asked.

"Why do you ask?" Severus questioned. "Making some plans to go snog in the Astronomy tower?"

"No sir." Potter flushed. "But you usually hand out assignments on Fridays, and so do several other professors."

Abruptly reminding Severus that the other staff have been singing the wonder boy's praises over his better grades, his attention to detail in his essays. Even Severus himself had been giving him, grudgingly, O's lately. He wrote essays exactly the length required, with the same information that Granger managed in twice the length. And as Potter spent his weekends and most of his weekday evenings in 'tutoring' sessions or quidditch, Severus imagined the pest used every second available to manage to complete his overloaded class schedule.

"I've better things to do this Friday than molly coddle you, Potter."

"Yes sir. Thank-you sir."

* * *

Draco munched on one of the biscuits and tea he'd had ready for Harry when he arrived at their room. It had been very much appreciated, as Harry drank two cups and ate four biscuits before slowing down.

He still felt ridiculously smug, he had all week, though he tried to hide it. He buried his nose in a book and pretended to read while observing the other boy over its pages.

Harry trusted him now. Trusted him more than even his friends in some ways. The showing him the chamber of secrets was a huge step, and the way he'd taken Draco's hand, leading him through those creepy tunnels was very telling. That he'd done the same earlier today during lunch and their spare to let Draco explore…

Giving into his desires, Draco moved so that he was leaning up against Harry on the couch. The other boy shifted until they were more comfortably situated, but didn't move away.

Elated, Draco went back to the book, occasionally demanding Harry's demonstration for a spell. Harry, in turn, asked for help with Potions.

When Harry began to move about, Draco knew it was time to go. But he was unwilling to go without trying to break down another milestone. When he stood, he offered Harry a hand up and tugged hard, pulling the boy into his arms and holding him there.

Nose nestled in the other boy's neck he breathed in the spicy orange scent that was Harry. "You smell good, Harry." He whispered, before releasing him.

"Wh-what was that about?" Harry asked, looking utterly confused.

Taking a deep breath, Draco decided to go for some absolutely idiotic honestly that the other boy seemed to appreciate so much.

"I like you, Harry." He gulped, looking down bashfully. "But if you don't think you can handle that… then I won't bother you about it again." That was a bold faced lie, he would never stop trying.

"Y-you like me?"

"I more than like you, Harry"

"Why?"

Draco nearly snorted. Only Harry could be so utterly oblivious. It was likely that he didn't see the girls who practically threw themselves to his feet everyday. Actually he was certain of it. "Come on, Harry. You're smart, kind, gorgeous, there really isn't anything about you not to like."  
"What about my temper, or the fact that anybody who comes near me is in mortal danger?"  
Draco shrugged, "I'm already going to be on the hit list remember? Especially when my father tries to get into the manor and finds he can't. I won't let him. And I won't become a slave to that monster."

"So you choose the light side?" Harry asked.

Draco hesitated. "I would choose to stand beside you." He said slowly. "So would a number of slytherins, if you showed them how strong you are. If you showed them that you, not the headmaster, would offer them protection from their families and for their families."

"What's wrong with the headmaster?"

"He's biased." Draco said simply. "You've never lied to them, you would never use them. We don't know the headmaster, but we know you. I know you."

"This is too much to take in right now." Harry shook his head.

"That's okay." Draco quickly said. "That's fine. But I… I just wanted you to know."

"That you like me."

"That I trust you." Draco turned his head away, embarrassed to be so candid but keeping Harry in view at the corner of his eye. When he felt a tentative hand rest on his shoulder, he had to bite his lip to keep from smiling in victory.

"I don't know what to say Draco." Harry whispered.

"You don't have to say anything." Draco turned and wrapped his arms around the other boy, inhaling his scent. "Just let me hold you. If that's okay."

"Okay." Draco held onto him for what felt like hours. Relishing as the tense little body beneath him slowly relaxed degree by degree. And then the hands came up and lightly rested at Draco's sides.

"I… I think I might like you too."


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I own nothing

chapter 13

It was just before curfew that Harry managed to get in. He waved briefly to Neville who was in the process of looking deeply into Ginny's eyes as she talked. Harry hid a grin, slipping upstairs and taking a quick shower before heading downstairs again.

Earlier in the month he'd established a routine that seemed to satisfy his friends. They knew he was getting training and spending most of his time working on schoolwork, so they accepted it so long as he separated some time most evenings for them.

The common room was abnormally empty, so Harry settled into one of the empty chairs by the fire, opening up his DADA textbook to skim the chapter readings for tomorrow. It wasn't anything new. He'd learned this particular shielding spell in his first week with Moody, but it was nice to have the theory in his head in case he was asked any questions.

"Hey Harry." Ron settled himself down into the chair opposite of him. "Where've you been?"

"Snape." Harry grunted, having conveniently forgotten to let anyone know that he now had Mondays off.

"Oh." Ron, rummaged through his bag and took out a pack of cards. "Exploding snap?"

Harry smiled. "Sure. Where's Mione?"

"Rounds." Ron shrugged. "She's paired up with a fourth year, she'll be back in half an hour or so."

Harry nodded, letting himself relax with the game.

"So, have you asked Hermione out yet?"

Ron flushed. "No."

"Are you going to?"

"It's hard, Harry." Ron passed a card over. "I want to find the right time."

"Ron," Harry smiled. "She's waiting for you to ask her."

"You think?"

"Trust me." Seeing his friend needed another little nudge, he decided to admit that he'd heard her talking to Ginny two weeks ago, while sneaking back into the dorm after working on his runes project with Draco. (He didn't mention the last part.)

"This is Hogsmeade weekend, isn't it?" Harry asked. "Why don't you take her for tea?"

"At Rosmerta's?" Ron made a face.

"No," Harry laughed. "There's another shop, it just opened, called the Inked Quill. She'll like it. It's supposed to look like a renovated library or something, I heard some students talking about it." Draco had told him about it. Said it was tasteful and inexpensive. Perfect for dating. Of course, Harry now realized that Draco was talking about them going there for a date.

Ron thought about it. "I don't know."

"It's simple Ron." Harry smirked in satisfaction when he put down a card. "Snap!" and all the cards exploded. Reshuffling them, he dealt a new hand. "Give her a flower, take her for tea look her in the eyes when she talks about things that bore you silly and pay attention enough that you can repeat them if she asks you to."

Ron hesitated, but then nodded. "I'll do it. I'll ask her tomorrow. Thanks Harry."

"Great!" Harry smiled. They played again, this time Ron won.

"Harry," Ron asked as they packed up the cards. "How do you know so much about girls anyway?"

"Truth?" Harry laughed. "I listened to Ginny, Hermione and other girls gossiping last year when they thought I wasn't paying any attention."

"Really?" Ron thought about that. "Learn anything else that's interesting?"

"A spell to remove leg hair."

"Ah." Then Ron grinned evily. "Think we could do it to Seamus while he sleeps?"

* * *

Wednesday. Harry loved Wednesdays. He had a spare period after lunch, which he dutifully used to keep up in his homework. After which, he had double potions with Draco. If someone told him that he would be looking forward to potions and Malfoy last year, he would have laughed himself sick. But potions had become perfectly tolerable lately. Snape didn't ask him too many obscene questions, things didn't land in his cauldron because he was working with Draco. And Draco. Draco ignored him except for curt instructions with mild insults to keep his image up. But there wasn't any sting, and Harry was learning tricks of potion brewing that even Hermione wasn't aware of.

And then, he'd have a proper supper with his friends, go to quidditch practice and go to the room to work on homework with Draco for a couple of hours before retiring to his dorm.

Spotting an open space between Neville and Ron at the gryffindor table, he sat down.

"Hey."

"Harry." Neville passed him the eggs. "We've got a DA meeting tonight, are you coming?"

He wanted to say no, but then Ron looked so freaking hopeful, as did Neville. And then Hermione sat down across from them. "What's going on?" she asked when she noticed everyone staring at Harry.

"I was just asking Harry if he was coming to the meeting tonight." Neville said.

"Oh, Harry." Hermione did the look. The one that made him feel guilty if he didn't do as she asked. Like it was his responsibility. And then everyone was looking at him so hopefully. Especially because he had avoided going to more than a couple since they began.

He looked over at slytherin table for a glance of Draco before caving. "What time?"

"Eight o'clock." Hermione smiled, victorious. "After quidditch practice."

"Right." Harry grabbed a piece of toast and got up.

"Where are you going Harry?" Hermione demanded.

"I've got finish some readings Moody assigned me for tomorrow."

"Why don't you just do it later?" Neville asked, then understood. "Oh, sorry Harry."

"It's okay." Harry gave the other boy a pained grin. "I'll see you in Potions, Hermione."

* * *

Draco watched Harry look around at the stupid Griffindors surrounding him and nodded. What's he doing? Draco wondered as he watched the other boy picked up a slice of toast and left the hall. Those morons! Draco fumed when he saw the guilty but pleased look of the people at that table. He was tempted to get up and follow Harry, but knew that it might look suspicious if he did. And by the time he waited a few minutes, it would be too late and the other boy would be long gone.

He had Charms with Harry second period, but Harry stuck to his side of the class, surrounded by Longbottom, Finnegan and Patil. As usual he didn't look around, or even really talk to his classmates, but kept his head buried in a book and then directed at his Flitwick for the entire lecture. Right as class let up he looked at Draco and gave him a very slight nod.

Draco didn't nod back, but made his way to lunch, ate quickly, while sticking a couple of rolls and an apple in his pocket.

"Where are you off to?" Blaise asked.

"None of your business." Draco sneered and was pleased when his friend automatically held up his hands and backed off. He made his way to the room, veering off a bit and taking back hallways to make certain that he wasn't followed. Inside Harry was predictably sitting on the couch, pouring over a book that Draco recognized as one Moody assigned him.

"Harry?"

Harry looked up and smiled. "Hey Draco."

"You skipped lunch." Draco reproved quietly, puling out the food and handing it over. Harry smiled his thanks and immediately began munching on the apple. "Why'd you leave breakfast?"

"I didn't skip. I was there long enough to eat something. I just needed to study a bit."

"Study a bit?" Draco repeated. "I know you're well ahead in your readings."

"Moody gave me some more assignments yesterday." Harry shrugged. "As did Pomfrey. And I was roped into joining DA tonight. I'm sorry Draco."

"That's fine." Draco pushed down his irritation. Harry didn't need that. He sat down and was immediately gratified when Harry shifted to lean up against him. "I've got arithmancy cancelled because we are going to be stargazing tonight at midnight, something about lunar calculations. So I'm free until potions." Carefully, he moved his arm up and over Harry's shoulder, pulling the other boy even closer. "So what is DA learning tonight?"

"Sleeping hexes, I think." Harry shrugged. "Nothing hard. You probably already know them, or could learn them within an hour."

Draco had to smile. Harry's idea of nothing hard was a spell that would take a normal wizard hours or even weeks to master. He wasn't a mediocre wizard though, and it did him good to hear what Harry thought of his abilities. He pulled out his own books and read through them for an hour before Harry put his away. "You caught up now?"

Harry shrugged, cuddling closer. "I'm tired."

Draco breathed in Harry's clean, pure scent. "You could take a nap," he suggested. "I'll wake you in time for potions."

"No," Harry stood up. "I've got to get a book from the library and then Dumbledoor wants to see me."

Draco sighed, getting up as well, disappointed. He wanted Harry to sleep in his lap. He wanted a chance run his fingers through that hair and perhaps get another sleepy confession while the boy was half awake. "I suppose I'll see you in potions then."

Harry hesitated at the door.

"What is it?" Draco asked as Harry came back to stand in front of him. And then Harry leaned up and Draco felt a something akin to a butterfly wing brush across his lips. "I'll see you later, Draco." Harry blushed and headed out of the room.

Draco stood stock still, hand to his mouth, staring at the closed door. He could still feel it. The warmth, his lips tingled from the bit of Harry's magic, his shoulders felt the weight of the Harry's hands as he had steadied himself to balance on his toes in order to reach Draco's mouth.

Harry kissed me. Draco closed his eyes, willing every detail of the event into his memory. Harry kissed me. He felt like shouting, like going after the boy and repeating the performance. Next time, he promised himself, next time they were alone he would kiss Harry. And it certainly wouldn't be tentative.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 13

"You've done much better since we last spoke, Harry." The headmaster said, not even bothering to look at his file again. "Well done."

"Thank-you sir." Harry had worked really hard for those grades. Going to his professors and asking for help to figure out what he did wrong, how he could do better and even accepting a few extra credit assignments to fix the gap.

"In defence-"

Except in DADA. Moody just said he was complaining and not working hard enough.

"Professor Moody hasn't been marking me fairly."

"Harry."

"It's true!" Harry pulled out the last few assignments, having prepared ahead of time. In his hand he held copies of Hermione's, Ron's, Neville's and his own for five separate exams and quizzes. "Look, sir. I'm not lying."

"Professor Moody has already told me that he plans to mark you harder than the others in class not receiving special training."

"Sir," Harry wasn't going to put up with this. It would be different if it was his fault. He stood, putting the first quiz down on the table one at a time so that the headmaster could easily compare his answers to the others. "Look, sir. I received a P for this exam."

The headmaster adjusted his glasses and peered at the quiz. He'd easily written twice as much as everyone else, even Hermione. He'd received half-marks for each question, for insufficient answers.

"A poor, you say?"

"And this one." Harry place the next test down. "I got an acceptable."

He'd written three times as much.

The headmaster glanced through them, then read over Harry's essays when he insisted.

"I've worked very hard, sir. It's not my fault that he's practically failing me for no reason. Even Snape's giving me decent grades, and he hates me."

"Professor Snape, Harry. And he doesn't hate you."

Harry didn't argue, partially because he wasn't sure that was true or not. Snape had been acting pretty decent to him recently. As decent as Snape got, anyway. "My grades, sir?"

The headmaster nodded. "I'll have a word with Alastor. While it's good to expect more of you, I suspect being given such marks when you have obviously put in a great deal of effort to do well would be disheartening."

"And if he doesn't change, sir?"

He'd actually fully expected to be reprimanded for that, but the headmaster surprised him.

"Then you can come speak with me, Harry. I trust that will be sufficient?"

"Yes, sir." Harry didn't like whinging about his teachers being mean to him, but there was only so much he would accept quietly. So much punishment before it was too much. Draco was right. He had to stand up for himself. "Sir? I'd like to go to Hogsmeade this weekend. I haven't had a day off in months, sir. I need to do my Christmas shopping and get other things as well." Like shampoo and toothpaste, he'd been borrowing Ron's for a week."

"I suppose that your training could be put off for one morning," Dumbledore started.

"Day, sir." Harry said. "I'd like all Saturday off."

"Harry, your training is important. You already are excused from it for quidditch games and you finish early on Sunday's for practice."

"I haven't had a day off in months, sir." Harry repeated, telling himself to stand firm. He wasn't asking for a lot here. And he only got a few hours off training for quidditch. "And I've improved all of my marks, just as you asked me to."

"Which is why, I feel very comfortable giving you the morning." Dumbledore sounded so reasonable. "You are just starting to truly pick up momentum, Harry. I've peeked in on several of your lessons. Your power and understanding is growing so much faster than it was even at the beginning of the term. It would be a waste to ruin that now."

Harry could see that the headmaster meant it. That he was honestly concerned about disrupting Harry's training now that it was going so well.

But what Harry was asking for was also reasonable. Beyond reasonable.

"Auror recruits get weekends off, sir." Harry said, instead. "As well as holidays. Aurors are expected to have a minimum of three days of downtime every two weeks. If they go six months straight, then they have mandatory leave for a month."

"Harry, we're not training you to become an auror."

"And they fight with specialized practice wands that send beams of light that dye your clothes. And trainees rarely get hurt beyond a few accidents." Harry knew this because Draco had told him to look it up. "I've looked up their course work. It's partially what Moody's using to train me. I'm up to second year now." He'd managed to compress a year of classes into just over four months under Moody. "If you're not training me to be an auror. Then what are you training me to be?"

"Harry," Dumbledore put out a placating hand. "Sit down."

Harry hadn't even realized that he'd stood up. A killer. That's what they were training him to be.

"I know we've expected a lot out of you." Dumbledore poured them both a cup of tea. "Perhaps, too much. And you haven't let us down."

"Then why can't I have just one day off?"

"It's inevitable," Dumbledore put one sugar and a dash of milk in one cup and handed it over, "you're next confrontation with Voldemort."

"I know."

"We're not training you because of what you're thinking, Harry." Dumbledore sighed. "We're just trying to make sure you survive."

Harry's eyes burned and he took a quick sip of tea. Then another. Before long he had finished his entire cup without anything more having been said.

"Sir." Harry put down the china. "Last year, you told me you wanted me to have a childhood while I could."

"I did. I do."

"Why?"

"I wanted you to have something to look back on when times become hard."

Harry nodded, waiting for the older to draw the right conclusions.

"I suppose," Dumbledore admitted, quietly putting down his own cup. "That one day would not hurt."

"Thank-you sir. I appreciate it."

They talked for a bit more after that. Dumbledore giving Harry a few details of Voldemort's activities. The Dark Lord was keeping fairly quiet, building his forces, at the moment.

As Harry was leaving, permission slip in his hand, Dumbledore called out to him. His eyes had a renewed twinkle in them that hadn't been there since the start of their conversation.

"Well played."

* * *

"Neville, the nettles have to be sliced lengthwise," Hermione instructed, trying not to groan. The other boy apologized and picked up another nettle, this time cutting it correctly.

Hermione looked over to see Harry working with Malfoy and scowled. It wasn't fair. Here she was with Neville, who was very nice and trying very hard but he was hopeless at potions. She had to keep an eye on everything he did in order to get a decent grade. Harry, on the other hand, seemed to be excelling despite the fact he was with Malfoy. She listened to the blond jerk bark out orders to her friend who simply nodded and did as he ordered. And Professor Snape kept giving them O's. She knew that their potions couldn't' always be better then hers. Sometimes she did everything and knew her potion was perfect. But then the potions teacher would lower the mark because Neville hadn't helped.

She caught Neville picking up the bogweed and silver knife and stopped him, handing over the bronze. Silver reacts badly with the weed.

Harry, she noted, had picked up the Bronze, listened to something Malfoy said and was now dicing up the weed perfectly. She would have to talk to him about that. Harry was even paired up for the term project in ancient runes with Malfoy. She knew it wasn't his fault, that the teacher put them together because they were next to each other on the roll call, but really. It wasn't healthy that he was just accepting whatever Malfoy said without argument. Harry hadn't even told her what his project was on except to say 'wards.'

Wards? There were so many different types of wards that Hermione couldn't even begin to narrow it down. And she was with Seamus. Seamus! That boy might be in advanced runes, but Hermione had no idea how. He argued with everything she put forwards, refused to do the project she'd researched so heavily already. In the end, they'd chosen bonding jewellery and he'd only agreed to that because his sister was getting married next year and he'd like to make the rings himself.

She did most of the research, his theories regarding some of the possible effects of the bonding were completely opposite of hers. Everything he studied seem to go completely against everything she managed to come up with.

She wished that she'd been partnered with Harry. Harry had really taken his studies seriously this year, she noted. But even that bit of triumph was ruined because her friend wasn't studying with her. He wasn't asking for her help. He was learning things and not sharing them with her.

She was pleased that Neville had convinced Harry to come to the DA meeting tonight. She'd been paying attention to Harry's schedule and realized that he did have enough time to attend DA, so long as she scheduled it after quidditch practice on Wednesdays. Tonight, she would talk to him again about leading DA. The list of spells he gave her were good. They were useful. She'd managed to learn over half of them so far and the DA was a quarter done the list. But she bet with his help that they'd speed up progress dramatically. And then they could learn some of the other spells he was learning. She wasn't stupid. She'd peaked at his books a few times and knew that he was studying stronger, more deadly spells. Fascinating spells. She hadn't managed to learn the fire whip, but she planned on getting him to teach it tonight. He wouldn't be able to say no to a room filled with people.

* * *

Harry entered the room of requirements with some trepidation. He'd gone to supper and enjoyed relaxing for a while before heading off to practice. Ron was a harsh task maker, having taken the position of captain because Harry was honestly too busy to. He drilled them over and over again until they were nearly ready to drop. The only plus was that he stopped practice a bit early, so they all had time to rest up a bit before DA.

"Come on mate." Ron pushed him into the room.

Harry blinked. There were fifty students from different years.

"It's, uh, a few more people than I anticipated." Harry said to Ron.

"Word must have spread you'll be here tonight, mate." Ron said. "Cause this is the biggest group we've had since last year."

"Harry!" Hermione came up and smiled at him. "Good you're here."

Harry shot a glance to Neville who looked just as clueless as he was. "Yeah. So what are you learning today?" he didn't quite like the look Hermione had in her eyes. "Instant sleep spells and some shielding right?"

"That's next week." Hermione replied.  
"Oh?"

"Yes," she smiled brightly at him and his gut clenched. "I thought you might help us learn the fire whip spell."

"Cor." Ron grinned. "That'd be awesome. You know that one, Harry?"

Harry closed his eyes. That spell was dangerous. The first few times he tried it, he was seriously burnt. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"Come on, Harry." Hermione frowned. "We need to know spells like this. Like we needed to know the ones we learned last year for the department of mysteries."

That hurt, especially when people started agreeing. "I gave you a list of spells Hermione. A good list of very useful spells that you've been teaching off of since the term started."

"It's a good list." She admitted. "But sleep spells? Stunners will do that. We need to learn offensive magic Harry."

Harry didn't have to look to see most everyone was agreeing. "Most of that list are offensive spells, Hermione. The sleep spells are so you can get past guards undetected, as they'll cover an area, not just a specific target so you have less chance of missing. They also last for an hour and need the stronger enervosa coupled with finito encantatem to wake the sleeper. The fire whip is flashy and dangerous. It took me weeks to learn and I was very badly burned a few times until I got the hang of it."

"So we'll be careful."

He could feel Ron shift beside him. "Pomfrey had to grow back most of my skin five times."

That helped to change the minds of most of the group, so Harry gave more incentive. "It might take you months of practicing once or twice a week to get it. Wouldn't it be better to learn a couple of new spells each week? The fire whip is only good for close contact and it's not very reliable." He dropped a quill on the ground and transfigured it into a whip. "It acts like a real whip." He said, picking up the long piece of leather. Turning to the wall he snapped it out and caught one of the candles on the sconce. Then another. Holding out the whip, he offered to let them try. Ron did, catching himself on the shoulder, but never managing to get the whip near the sconce. Neville did better, but he cut his chin first. A few others tried it, and Harry healed up the wounds or bruises.

He explained that every time the whip came too near you, you would get a mild burn and when the whip touched you, you would get third degree burns.

That decided the class, especially when Harry admitted he never really planned on using it, as it was so useless.

He got them sorted into different groups. Ron and Neville had learned the spells and so they helped teach the rest. Some caught on within an hour and began helping the others, some were barely managing by the end of the session. Hermione was angry with him, he knew. And so he tried to avoid her all together.

As they wrapped up, she approached him again, eyes still furious, but the rest of her appeared calm.

"Are you coming again next week Harry?" she asked. "Wednesday, after quidditch practice? You're really good at teaching this stuff, Harry. Everyone learns much faster when you're here." Most people were smiling and agreeing, looking at him expectantly.

Harry looked around, once more feeling trapped.

"Yeah, sure." He said, unwilling. "I'll be here next week." He took off before she could extract a promise to come every week.

"That was really low of her, Harry." Neville said when he arrived up at the sixth year dormitory.

"Which part?" he demanded, his voice bitter, throwing himself down onto his bed.

"All of it." Neville admitted. "The fire whip, the bringing it up in front of everyone, the forcing you to come next week when we all know you don't really have the time."

"It's not that I don't want to." Harry said, but that was a bit of a lie. If he had to choose between DA and Draco, Draco would win every time. Even the joy that he'd managed to kiss the other boy and his recent victory with Dumbledore had been sucked dry over the past few hours.

"I know." Neville sighed. "Did you really have to have your skin grown back five times?"

"Yeah." Harry shuddered. "It's more painful that regrowing bones. You did good with that whip though. If you practiced a bit more, you might be able to handle it. And the spell."

"Really?" Neville thought about that. "But I thought you said it's useless."

"It's flashy, it takes a lot of power and there are a lot of easier spells that will do the job, but it's not as completely useless as I made it out to be."

Neville shrugged. "I'd rather know twenty spells than one fancy, but somewhat useless one."

Harry grinned. "That's what I thought." Then he switched subjects. "So. You and Ginny, huh?"

Neville blushed bright red, but didn't take the bait. "Ron said you gave him some advice about Hermione. Since when did you have an insight into the workings of the female mind? Besides, Ginny still likes you."

"Gin's like a sister to me."

"Doesn't mean she thinks of you like a brother."

Harry tried to remember what he'd heard last time the girls forgot he was there. "She likes blue bells."

"Blue bells?"

"Yeah." Harry grinned. "Give her flowers. Start calling her Gin every once in a while. Tell her she looks pretty, or her hair looks pretty. Trust me."

Neville looked at him searchingly for a few seconds before nodding. "I'll do that."

"Neville?"

"Yeah?"  
"Don't tell Ron I told you how to date his sister."

"Don't tell Ron I want to date his sister."

Harry smiled, shifting under the covers he dreamed about silver eyes and gentle kisses.

* * *

"Concentrate Potter." Moody ordered, sending another curse at Harry.

Harry could feel his shield buckle slightly, and tried to force more power into it. Moody had confiscated his wand again and then started attacking him. When he first did this, Harry dodged and weaved until tired enough for Moody to hit him. But now, several weeks later, Harry understood what Moody had been trying to do. He'd been trying to get Harry's magic to defend him, wandlessly.

And so here he was, with a wandlessly conjured shield, he didn't even know what kind, trying to ram as much power into it as he possibly could so that he didn't end up in the hospital wing, or have to treat himself for multiple broken bones as he had the last few times.

Moody threw another blasting hex and the shield buckled some more. Sweat rolled freely down his face and Harry shifted his stance. Moody might not have realized it, but he'd moved closer and closer as he tried to get through the shield. One more step was all Harry needed.

Another curse, one which Harry was certain would have disemboweled him had it hit. Another. And then there was the step.

Harry waited until Moody was in the middle of canting another, lethal and probably dark, spell before he let the shield fall and dived. Tackling the older man. He didn't know where precisely his wand was, so he accio'd it, while taking the other man's and throwing it across the room.

Panting, Harry kept his wand trained on his 'teacher' as the man laid there on the floor, staring at him.

"Good." Moody smiled. "Very good." He didn't sound happy or impressed though. He was angry, Harry could tell and thus made certain to keep the other man away from his wand.

"Do you yield, sir?" he demanded.

Moody's eye shifted and Harry shouted "immobilus!" before Moody's wand had a chance to return to him. After several detection charms, Harry realized there was a spell that sent the wand to its owner automatically if he was within the same room. It also was spelled to curse anyone who tried to use it but Moody.

Harry undid enough of the charm so that Moody could talk.

"Do you yield, sir?"

Moody still had that look about him that promised pain.

"Yes, Potter. Now release me."

Harry released him, keeping his wand up.

"Good, Potter." Moody growled. "I expect you here at eight, sharp on Saturday."

"Sir," Harry pulled out the letter from the headmaster that he'd procured the day before. "I have permission from the headmaster to attend Hogsmeade weekend on Saturday. I thought that he told you."

Moody took the brief note that Harry had requested. Written proof just in case Moody 'happened to forget' that Harry was getting the day off. He saw Moody barely glance at the paper and knew that he was right. And that was worth the condescending look he got from the headmaster when the man had written it out.

"So." Moody said. "You'll waste a days' training to what? Play with your friends? Place them in danger when you should be learning to protect them?"

Harry knew that no matter what he said, Moody wouldn't agree and so, picking up his bag, he gave the one argument that won Dumbledore over. "I'll be remembering what I'm fighting for."

"I suppose you're still taking lessons with Snape on Fridays. I want you here by six on Sunday, Potter." Moody growled. "Have the rest of Trudeau's Advanced Curses and Defence memorized. We'll be going over them until you've got them right."

Harry nodded. There was no way he would have that managed. Even if he had a week, it was impossible. They'd only finished half of the book and they'd been working on it for a month. The best he could do is skim through it, and learn four new spells. Moody couldn't complain to the headmaster without looking foolish. But Harry had no doubts that he would need Poppy. In fact, if the older wizard weren't obviously tired now, Harry imagined the man would want to continue to duel Harry until he would have been forced to stay all day in the hospital wing tomorrow.

* * *

Draco was contemplating leaving. He'd finished any work worth doing. Harry hadn't told him that he'd be showing today, in fact, he'd said that Moody would be working him very hard. So of course, Harry would choose just that moment to walk through the door.

"Hey." The brunette smiled. "How are you doing?"

"Good. You?"

"All right." Harry plunked down on the couch next to Draco who discretely checked to see if the boy was truly all right. Taking out the sandwich he routinely packed for Harry, he handed it over and was immediately gratified when the other boy started munching without checking it for curses.

"You know," Harry said when he finished. "You don't have to feed me."

"Of course I do." Draco snorted. "You'd barely eat if I didn't get you food."

"But why?" Harry asked puzzled. "I mean, you just started being nice to me. It doesn't make sense."

"I like you." Draco shrugged, not wanting to get into this conversation. "I didn't just start being nice to you. You were tolerable this year, so I reciprocated." Fingering Harry's threadbare shirt. "If you wore some better clothes I might have started being decent to you last year."

Harry looked down. "I don't know much about clothes." He admitted, seemingly satisfied with Draco's answer. "I just picked out some things that fit, Ron helped me last time."

Draco snorted. That explained so much. There wasn't a molecule of taste between the two of them. Harry looked like he was debating with himself over something. "I get to go to Hogsmead this weekend."

"Really?" Draco smiled. "That's great. Do your friends know?"

"No." Harry admitted. "It's just been made official."

Don't let them know. Draco almost demanded. Wanting the boy to spend the day with him. He didn't though. He knew he couldn't disappear for the entire day without raising some serious questions that he wasn't prepared to answer. That Harry wasn't prepared to answer if they were caught together. But he could spend some time with the other boy.

"You seriously need to drop by gladrags." Draco shuddered when the image of Weasley outfitting his… well Harry… again. "Your friends don't know you're going to Hogsmeade tomorrow, so they've probably made plans or something, right?"

"Ron is going with Mione on a date." Harry shrugged. "But I don't expect that to last all day."

"Good. Tell them you'll meet them somewhere at noon or something." He tried not to gag at the thought of the mudblood and the weasel. She was such a stuck up nosy know-it-all and he was an ill-mannered moron. "That way they can have their 'date' meet up with you for the afternoon. No one will complain then."

"Noon. Why Noon?"

"Because you are going to Gladrags and I'll be picking out your clothes." Draco was already having some fantastic fantasies of what Harry would look like dressed in proper wizarding robes.

"I don't know." Harry flushed. "I mean. What if people ask who picked out my clothes? They'll never believe that I did."

"Just say that you told them you needed a new wardrobe and the shop did the rest."

"Won't the shopkeepers tell everyone that you picked out my clothes?"

Draco thought about that for a second. He was right. Harry's life was considered to be fair game according to the press. And gladrags wouldn't want to lose the publicity of outfitting the boy-who-lived.

"There's another shop." He said finally. "They're more expensive, but make up for it in discretion."

"Money isn't a problem." Harry agreed. "Where is it? I haven't heard of another shop."

"It's called Antoine's. You have to know where it is in order to find it." He also used much finer fabrics than gladrags did. He rarely got to shop there because his family didn't believe in spending a fortune on clothing when he would outgrow it or damage it due to school. "I'll meet you by the shrieking shack at nine."

"Three hours?" Harry looked appalled. "You think it will take three hours?"

"If we had the time, it could take all day." Draco stifled a smile at Harry's groan. "I'll owl Antoine. He'll be ready."

Harry just wondered if he would be.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 15

Harry approached the shrieking shack, feeling a tad apprehensive. When he'd told his friends that he was permitted to attend Hogsmeade weekend, the reaction was a bit unexpected. He'd known they'd be pleased. But he hadn't thought it would take so much effort to get them to leave him alone.

Ron and Hermione seemed like they were about to cancel there date when Harry offered Draco's 'proposal'. Then he'd had to fight off the rest of his year mates. He was only permitted to go off alone when he'd been very firm, explaining that, as he didn't know if he would get another Hogsmeade weekend, he was planning on doing his Christmas shopping.

Draco was already there. "You've got your cloak?"

"Yeah."

"Well, put it on. Unless you want to explain to people why you were seen with me."

Harry flushed, but did as the other boy bid. "Are you sure it's not the other way around?"

Draco looked hurt. "I'm not the one cares. If my friends knew about us, they'd probably pat me on the back and congratulate me for getting your protection."

"I-I'm sorry, Draco."

The other boy might not be able to see him, but he certainly wasn't looking his way now as he began walking off. "It's fine."

"No, it's not." Harry sighed. It was the truth. Draco probably could convince everybody he was just tricking Harry into some nefarious scheme if they were caught out. If Draco even wanted to. He didn't even know why he trusted the blond, but he did. "I really am sorry."

"I forgive you. Now let's go before we're late."

Antoine's was a simple, none-descript building at the edge of town. There weren't any signs, or displays in the window. And as they walked in the front door there wasn't the universal jingle that all shop-doors bells had.

"Mr. Potter." A tall, thin man came smiling up to greet them.

"Uh… hello."

"Yes, yes." Antoine took their cloaks and handed them off to an attendant nearby. "My goodness. Goodness." He muttered, circling Harry and backing him up further into the room. "You need some serious help. Look at those glasses! That hair? Those… those… I can't even call them clothes. You might as well be wearing a gunny sack."

"Um…" Harry looked to Draco for help, but found the other boy just nodding, agreeing with everything the other man had to say.

"Well," Antoine snapped his fingers. "We don't have much time. Up on the stool, Mr. Potter. Marceille! Get Mr. Malfoy some tea."

Harry found himself standing on a pedestal, a magical measuring tape taking measurements of his arms, his head, his legs, his chest, hips, waist. Bolts of cloth were brought up and presented under his chin as the man and Draco conversed of what Harry would need.

"Everything." Draco said. "A whole wardrobe."

Antoine looked tickled pink. Harry felt ill. And then he was pushed into a chair, a cape thrown about his neck and someone was cutting his hair! "Highlights!" Antoine smiled. "Some lighter browns and dark auburn."

When Harry was about to get up Draco came into focus holding his cup of tea. "Shorter." The blond agreed. "But long enough for the curl to come through."

"Excellent, Excellent." Antoine held up another bolt of cloth under Harry's face. "Green. Green is his colour. I'm almost tempted to make everything green. Brings out his eyes."

Harry looked at Draco beseechingly, who smiled cruelly for a second, then relented. "But awfully dull. No. He'll need blacks, white, beige's and, as much as I loath to admit it. Reds. He does look good in red."

A deep red cloth was held up under his chin.

"Ah." Antoine nodded. "I see what you mean. Acrumantuala silk, Egyptian cotton. Blue. I think blue merman's weave would look stunning."

Harry's head was bent this way and that as the man continued to cut his hair. Then there was an old man tearing away his glasses and putting on a new pair on his nose. It took a second and then the room was put into focus.

"No, too round." Draco said.

They were taken away and another put on his face.

"Too big."

"Too narrow."

"Not black."

"Not red."

"He needs them to be practically indestructible."

"No."

"No."

"Merlin, no."

"Good."

Harry went to take the new glasses off his face when his hands were batted away, the cape from around his neck was removed and he was pushed into a fitting room with no mirror and given some clothing to try on.

He heard Antoine talking to Draco. "I hate to send him out wearing anything not tailored to him especially. But I would like to see how they hang on him. And I refuse to let him be seen wearing anything like those rags walking from my door."

"Of course."

Harry quickly put on black slacks and green button up. Before going out.

"Oh, Bravo!" Antoine clapped his hands.

Harry took in Draco's stunned appearance. "Do I look okay?"

"Okay?" Antoine was exclaiming. "Okay! You look a great sight better than Okay!"

Harry wasn't paying attention, focused on Draco who was coming up closer and closer.

Gently cupping Harry's cheek, he placed a kiss on his lips.

"You look wonderful, Harry."

"Indeed, indeed!" Antoine piped up and moved a full length mirror in front of him. "Look at my masterpiece!" A whispered spell and a tap against his new frames brought everything sharply into focus.

Harry blinked and shifted a bit so that he knew the person in the mirror was indeed him.

Gone were the worn, baggy clothing, the messy hair, and the too-big glasses. Harry had never thought that he was terribly attractive, not that he'd given it much though. He was too short and skinny and his hair never looked like it was brushed. But here, his hair was shorter than it had ever been in his life, resulting in curly waves that looked almost orderly for once. The clothing hung just right, showing off hard earned muscles from quidditch and fighting with Moody. His eyes were always hidden beneath the overlarge glasses that took up most of his face. Glasses he'd had since he was eight years old. In their place were small silver rectangular shaped lenses through which Harry's eyes looked brighter and greener than he remembered ever seeing them before. Everything was clearer and sharper than he'd ever seen.

"Wonderful, wonderful." Antoine chanted, placing a pair of loafers at Harry's feet. "To complete the look."

Harry slipped off his old worn runners, not even complaining when they were immediately taken away by the assistant.

"You'll needing several sets of robes," Antonia said, marking something on a clipboard. "A selection of footwear, shirts, pullovers, slacks, underwear, socks."

"Socks?" Harry repeated.

"Socks." Draco confirmed. "Those things on your feet are terrible."

Harry just shrugged. "Where are my clothes?"

"Those things?" Antonia wrinkled his nose. "They've been destroyed, naturally."

"Destroyed." He couldn't believe this. "What am I supposed to wear for the rest of the day?"

"What you've got on now. Of course."

"Of course." Harry nodded. "And what will my friends think, when I'm supposed to be shopping for Christmas presents?"

"Tell them that you went to Antonio's by mistake." Draco shrugged. "Anyone who's anyone will understand that he wouldn't let you go looking as you did. You look wonderful, Harry."

It's sad that those few words were all Harry needed to hear to make the next few hours of crap worth it.

"Right." Antonio held out a bag. "A set for tomorrow. The rest of your order will arrive tomorrow evening."

"Evening?" Harry swallowed a bit. "Could you send them to Draco instead?"

Immediately Draco's eyes narrowed, knowing exactly why Harry would make such a request. Turning to Antonio, "Yes, send them to me. He'll need the regular charms added to everything. Plus the added protection spells. He'll also need two sets of battle robes. You outfit several aurors and aurors in training, do you not?"

"Yes." Antonio make a few more marks on his paper. "I will make up several sets of clothing to wear under the battle robes. Living silk. It's expensive, but they last nearly forever, are self mending, self cleaning and are an added level of protection."

"Good."

Harry was thankful that Draco wasn't going to make a fuss. He didn't know if battle robes were the brightest thing to buy when he was still in school and Draco waved that away.

"They'll help protect you against that menace of a DADA instructor." Draco sniffed. "And what about me?"

"You?"

"Yes, me. Don't you want to save me the pain and worry of whether or not that madman is going to accidentally kill you?"

Harry couldn't tell if the other boy was kidding or not and decided to err on the side of caution. "Of course I do." Harry glanced at the shopkeeper who had gone to speak with his assistant, his back turned tactfully away. Harry meant to hug Draco quickly and let go, but the boy had other ideas. Arms encircled his body so tightly that it was difficult to breath. Draco obviously hadn't been speaking lightly when he wanted Harry to wear battle gear. "Order whatever you want. Outfit me however you desire." He promised when the arms loosened. "I'll make something up." Then he grinned. "Or maybe I'll just tell them that I want to look good for my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?"

Too late Harry realized his mistake, he tried to draw away but those arms tightened again. He tried to make up excuses, but something was covering his mouth. And then he was receiving the best snog of his life, there in the clothier.

"Boyfriend?" Draco repeated, dropping another peck on the tip of his nose.

"Boyfriend." Harry breathed.

Draco smiled slowly, a quirk of the lips that grew until his entire face was changed. "Good." Another peck on the lips. "You'd better go. Your friends will be waiting for you."

Harry shook his head, trying to get rid of the dazed feeling. It took another kiss, but Harry bid goodbye to his boyfriend, went to Antoine to sign the document that would allow him to simply bill Harry's account – he didn't look at the total, he didn't want to.

"Make something for Draco, for me." He murmured to Antoine. "Something he'll like."

"I'll see to it."

Harry entered The Three Broomsticks after a quick stop at a few shops to pick up some things to make it look like he actually did some shopping. Quills, inks, a book he'd been meaning to get. He was ten minutes late.

"You're late." Hermione stated. She still hadn't forgiven him for Wednesday's DA meeting. Neville was there with Ginny and Ron, who gave him an apologetic look.

"Sorry." Harry dropped the bags down beside the chair and sat. Rosemerta dropped off a butterbeer without him asking. He raised it in thanks before shuffling off his cloak.

Her eyes narrowed, but Ginny beat him to the chase.

"What happened to you?" she exclaimed. "You look hot Harry." And then she blushed a deep red.

"You look like you spent the morning in a beauty parlour, Harry." Hermione added, not encouraging.

"I stumbled into some shop called Antoine's." Harry shrugged. "The owner said I couldn't leave with me looking as I did."

"What?" Hermione, Harry recalled, had helped pick out some of his clothes. "There was nothing wrong with the way you dress. And did you get a hair cut and an optometrist while you were at it?"

"Antoine did that." Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Does it look terrible?"

"No." Ginny said and then blushed again. Neville seemed to wilt a little, but shrugged when Harry sent him an apologetic glance. "You look great Harry. Really."

"The shop owner did it."

"Harry," Hermione reproved. "You shouldn't just let someone come and order you around."

"Hermione," Neville broke in. "If he went to Antoine's, that's pretty much all he can do."

"Excuse me?"

"Antoine's Harry." Neville ignored her. "It's impressive that you got in, much less that he clothed you. He's very selective."

"Yeah?"

"I assume that one bag isn't all that you purchased?"

"There's more coming." Harry confirmed. "Most of my clothes are getting too worn from my lessons. So I'm getting some things that should last longer."

"Mate," Ron looked a bit put out. "Even I can tell that's a spidersilk shirt. Durable is not a word I'd use to describe it."

"Is that what it is?" Harry looked down at the green button down and shrugged. "I think it's what he had on hand. I don't think the other stuff will be made from this."

"You look like your trying to compete with Malfoy." Hermione stated and Ron nodded.

Harry really didn't care that much. Draco was the one who picked everything out as it was.

"I think it's good." Neville said firmly. "You're head of the House of Potter. Even if you weren't the boy-who-lived, you'd be an important figure in our society. You should be dressed properly."

"Thanks Nev."

Neville nodded and turned to Ginny. "Did you want another, Gin?"

"Sure."

Harry was rather proud with the way Ginny's eyes followed the other boy as he made his way to the counter and collected another round of drinks. He turned back to Ron, knowing that winning the other boy over was the most important thing right now.

"Do I look that bad?" Harry asked his friend. "I know they're probably fancier and more expensive than either of us are used to. I needed some new clothes and it seemed easier to let someone who knew what they were doing pick them out."

"You look like a right poncy prat." Ron declared. "Your clothes were fine."

"They were falling apart at the seams Ron." Ginny snapped. "I was going to mention that he needed to buy something new. Harry's been wearing the same few sets of clothes for years. Even you get new things every once in a while."

A reminder that, unlike Ron, Harry really hadn't grown very much if he could still fit the stuff he'd bought two years ago was not pleasing so he ignored it.

"It didn't seem important."

"And it is now?" Ron still looked put off.

"There are only so many times you can repair your clothes, Ron." Harry shrugged. "I was down to three shirts and even those weren't mending well anymore."

Regardless of the fact Harry often was with Draco after practice, or that he healed himself or had Promfrey do it before returning to his friends, he knew that Ron was well aware he got hurt regularly. His friend paled a bit and had some sort of brief internal debate.

"I suppose so long as you don't start greasing your hair back like Malfoy, I can live with it." Ron said finally.

"Thanks Ron." Harry turned to Hermione. "And you?"

"I still think that you shouldn't let yourself be talked into things the way you did, Harry." She glanced at the frowning Ron, Ginny and Neville, who had just returned. "But I will admit that you look nice."

"So what have you been doing?" Harry shot a conspiratorial look to Ron, who blushed but puffed his chest out proudly.

"We went for tea at the Quill."

"Was it nice, Hermione?"

"Oh yes." Hermione gushed, looking like the old Hermione for the first time in a while. "You should see it Harry. The walls are covered with wizarding literature that you can actually take out and read."

"Did you?" he wondered if sending Ron their for his first date was a good idea or not.

"No, of course not. But I think next Hogsmeade weekend I might. I've been learning about the wizarding world and spells for years, but I've never learned about their theatre and art."

"Good. Good. So, what do you guys want to do?" Harry asked.

"We haven't been to the bookstore yet." Hermione volunteered, making Ron cover his head and groan.

Harry just grinned.

Today was a very good day. Even with all the shopping.


	16. Chapter 16

Author's note: I know Hermione's irritating in this story. I just think she's always represented as the total turncoat or goody-goody perfect friend too often. She's an only child, spoiled, competitive, controlling, and extremely smart. I just figure that she wouldn't take to the new Harry, who didn't do as she says all the time. She's not a bad person, she just likes things to go her way and tries to arrange it that way. I'm also trying to make Ron a little less harsh and judgmental.

If I have spelling errors my crappy work computer doesn't about, please let me know and I'll correct them. I hate reading fiction with errors in them. Yes, I write this fanfiction at work. So sue me.

Disclaimer: I am woefully poor, and thus I do not own or have anything to do with the Harry Potter franchise.

Chapter 16

Moody was trying to kill him.

Harry had learned seven new spells out of the book, more than anticipated, but it wasn't good enough.

He'd spent his morning running around the lake and doing multiple exhausting exercises to 'improve his endurance'.

Then had several hours of practicing his spell work on targets and dummies that Moody set up. It might have been alright if he'd been given a bit of a break, even to catch his breath. Or eat. Eating would have been nice. He had managed to cut out for a quick breakfast, but he'd barely shown his face into the great hall for lunch when Moody managed to catch him and drag him back. He could have fought it, probably should have. But Snape must have witnessed Moody forcing him out, so he didn't think he'd get a detention. And, really, he just wanted to get Moody's punishment over with without pissing him off too much more than he already had. Harry was just happy he'd had the foresight to bring a bottle of water with him.

And now with his magic and energy levels severely depleted, Moody decided it was time for a duel. Checking out his time piece, Harry realized that dinner was long past. His wand taken away, Harry was busy jumping out of the way of hexes, trying to bring up his wandless shields. Never getting close enough to the man to take his wand, which had an anti-summoning charm on it.

"You're not trying hard enough, boy." Moody snarled. "One day off and you waste it making yourself look pretty."

Harry managed to get a shield up to deflect the curse thrown at him.

"People depend on you boy! And what are you doing? Playing games!"

He deflected another, barely.

"You've got to learn responsibility!"

Harry dodged a slicing hex.

"Getting yourself into danger!"

He dodged another.

"Getting your friends into danger!"

Harry managed to bring up a shield that buckled slightly under the blasting hex, but held.

"Getting Black killed!"

Harry contemplated the door and wondered if he could get through it unscathed.

"Your parents died for you!"

Harry tried to ignore the words. They were meant to hurt. To weaken him. Moody had done it before. Regularly. And then he dodged another curse and sent a weak stunner in return.

"And what do you do? You waste their sacrifice!"

This time was a pain hex. Harry couldn't dodge. He was too exhausted. Moody wanted him to hurt. He wanted to punish him for his leave of absence.

_Why did I come here and let him do this to me?_ Harry wondered. He'd known, more or less, or this would end. Why hadn't he left sooner? Why had he given up his wand?

_If I wake up_, he promised himself, _I'm done_.

If he woke up.

* * *

There had been no Potter at lunch today, though Severus had heard something about Moody dragging Potter out of the hall. He'd seen Potter running around the lake with Moody observing this morning, but there hadn't been gryffindor's star seeker at their practice today. And when he swung by to deliver medical supplies, he noted that there wasn't a dark haired boy in the medical ward.

And so, curious and just a tad concerned as to what had become of Potter, Severus made his way to the classroom in which he knew Moody and the boy practiced.

Moody and Potter were battling. Moody was obviously angry, shouting out comments about Potter's character and lack of drive while sending powerful curse after powerful curse at the boy. Severus narrowed his eyes as he took in the scene. Moody was in peak form, his face flushed a bit from exertion but it was obvious he was ready for a fight. Potter, in contrast, was pale, shaky, obviously exhausted. His shields were weak. His dodges more and more looked like he tripped over himself. But there was something else. When Potter sent a weak stunner towards the ex-auror, Severus realized what it was. Potter had no wand.

When had Potter begun practicing wandless magic? And why on earth was he duelling an auror without his wand? Severus himself could perform small feats of wandless magic that were very draining, which is why he rarely bothered. Moody sent a pain hex at the boy as Potter tripped dodging something else. It was a precursor to the crucio and long lasting. Severus waited for the man to let up on the obviously defeated boy for a full minute before stepping forward.

"I do believe he's unconscious, Moody."

Moody looked up, derision on his face. Though for what, Severus could only guess. The man let the spell go on for another second though, before cancelling.

"He's awake. Little bugger's just trying to gain some sympathy."

"Indeed."

Severus checked the boy over. "His magic levels are severely depleted as are his energy levels." He was also bleeding from several lacerations. Moody was right though. The boy was awake. Barely. "Potter." Eyes flickered to him but the boy didn't attempt to move. Checking his own pockets, Severus took out the pain potion and pepper up that he'd taken to carrying for emergencies when Voldemort returned. "Has he eaten?"

"How should I know a thing like that?" Moody grumped, but Severus caught the prevarication.

"I assume he's been with you all day." Severus turned to the boy. "Potter. Have you eaten today? The potion I have on hand to give you will react very badly with an empty stomach."

Potter licked his lips and tried twice before he managed to make a whispered "brfst."

"Very well then." Severus cast the mobilicorpus. "Come Moody. We will have to take him to Pomfrey."

"He's not bad off." Moody snorted. "Just give him a pepper up. Potter's just trying to get out of training."

"He will need several potions I do not have on hand in order to remedy his magic and energy levels." He snapped. "You will come because Potter cannot answer questions and Pomfrey will need to know what he's done today."

They made their way quickly, using back passages so as to not run into any students. Draco passed by them, and sneered when he took in Potter floating in front of them.

"What's he done now, sir? Fight another Basilisk?"

"Not now, Mr. Malfoy." Severus said and was relieved when his godson just nodded, watching as they passed.

Poppy was not happy to see them. She tutted about the boy, casting spell after spell.

"What have you had him do today?" she demanded. "I want times and I want specifics."

Moody didn't want to say. He tried to be general. But the wrath of Poppy is great and Severus took pleasure in seeing the man break.

That pleasure was turned to a stunned silence as Moody recounted the day. Six am start. Moody had the boy do callisthenics, running, weight lifting and swimming all morning, then straight into practicing spells that made Severus' eyebrows raise. Some of those were second and third year auror curriculum. And then, when Potter was physically and magically exhausted, Moody admitted, grudgingly, to taking away the boy's wand to work on his wandless spellcasting during a 'mock battle'.

His wandless abilities had improved so much as that? Severus marvelled that the boy could do more than a simple wingardium leviosa with the way his energy levels were fairing. It took several energy and magic replenishing draughts before colour returned to Potter's face. Upon the removal of the boy's shirt, Severus was faced with a small body littered with recent scars and a few very old ones.

"You're scarring." Poppy frowned. "You know better than that."

Severus looked at her incredulously. That's all she had to say?

"I don't always have enough time to do it properly." Potter shrugged. "And the new skin doesn't seem to heal as quickly."

"That's because you're not eating enough and your magic levels are low." She handed Potter a nutrient brew. "Did I not give you specific instructions regarding meals?"

Potter glanced over at Moody briefly before ducking his head. "Yes, Ma'am. I've been going-"

"But clearly not eating nearly as much as you need to." Poppy finished. "I expect to see you at the hall for every meal. No skipping. And a serious effort to double your portion sizes or, regardless of what the headmaster says, I'll have you here on strict bed rest. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good." She nodded. "Will you be able to sleep on your own, or do you need a potion?"

"I can sleep." Potter's assurances were helped by the fact that he was grey with exhaustion and barely able to move about. "I need… I need to speak with the headmaster."

"Later." Poppy tucked him in carefully. "I promise we'll both be having words with him."

Poppy gestured Moody to follow her into her office. Severus, not one to miss out on an obvious talk-down slipped in to watch.

She was furious. She threatened the man with all sorts of unspeakables, from neutering to bringing him before the schoolboard and medical councils for injuring a student. That the boy was being trained didn't come into it, as far as she was concerned. There were ways to train people without requiring serious medical attention regularly. And then the fool man brought up Albus.

Severus had to force himself to keep from laughing when the man was summoned and himself received an earful of the angry nurse. Nothing either man could say would calm her.

And when Albus mentioned that injuries during training were bound to occur, she brought out Potter's file, which had grown since he'd seen it last.

"Harry's injuries have decreased, though, have they not?" Albus asked.

"Decreased?" Poppy flung open the curtain to her window in the office, allowing her to keep an eye on the ward while working in there. Potter's bed was close enough that you could still make out the scars on his upper chest and arms peeking out of the blanket. "You look at those and tell me that they've decreased. He's mending his own wounds, broken bones and other injuries, just like you ordered him to. He's malnourished. And do you know why?"

"No."

"Because he does not have enough time to eat. Because he's afraid to eat, as it might have been poisoned."

"Potter mentioned that the elves are under orders to poison his food after I observed him on several occasions checking his food" Severus added, knowing that the elves would only take such an order from the headmaster himself.

"It started as a lesson…" Albus shrugged, "and it was only after we received a poisoned missive in the mail."

"It's disgusting."

"The boy is learning constant vigilance." Moody defended.

"I don't see you checking your food to see if it was poisoned." Poppy snapped.

"My methods are working. By the end of the school year I doubt he'll need a wand."

"And the point of utterly exhausting him before you force him to duel wandlessly?" Poppy demanded.

"To simulate a battle environment, of course."

"Of course." Severus agreed, dryly. He'd seen the look of pleasure on the man's face as he had Potter under the pain curse. He was punishing Potter, though for what he didn't know.

"It is regrettable that Harry has been injured." Albus finally said. "But he has so far excelled under this regime. His marks, his focus, his duelling abilities and spell work have all improved dramatically. But you are right, Poppy, in that we may have been pushing him too hard if he is now suffering magical exhaustion. He is taking lesson from Alastor four times a week and Severus twice."

"He'll have more time if he doesn't play quidditch." Moody answered, a vindictive gleam in his eye.

"True, but I do not think it wise to force him from quidditch."

"Why not?"

"Harry made it very clear to me at the beginning of the year that he would do all that was required of him, provided that I do not take quidditch from him. I do not know how it would fair if I were to go back on my word. When does Harry begin and end with you on weekends, Alastor?"

"We usually go from seven to six in the evening." Moody admitted after some length. "Though the last two weeks it has been from six to eight."

"And meals?" Poppy pressed. "Do you stop for meals? I've seen him try to get away from you. Has he ever not had to tie you down in order to escape you and eat like he's been ordered to?"

His silence was damning.

"And when does his tutoring begin and end during the weekdays?"

"Five to nine or ten."

"And you Severus?"

"Potter's lessons are from seven to eight or nine." He didn't mention that he'd reduced them.

"This is ridiculous, not wonder he barely takes any time to eat and only that after I threatened him with a detention for every missed meal." Poppy sniffed. Severus appreciated her taking the blame for that one. "He is either in class or being tutored during meal times. He's got a heavier course load than even Ms. Granger and then the forced tutoring on top of that. It's a wonder the boy sleeps."

"Poppy-" Albus started.

"No! I've had enough!" She wasn't looking at them anymore, she was watching Potter. "I'm finished with watching from the sidelines and patching him up. I've broken many of my oaths for you, Albus. I ignored the fact that he was obviously neglected and, perhaps even, abused since he came to me in his first year because you told me that he had to stay there. But you promised! Promised that you'd take care of it, so that it was safe and healthy for him to be there. So I listened. And then I ignored it every year, even though deep down I knew that you'd done nothing."

"Poppy I-"

"And now, I've argued with you. Fought with you for months about the way that man is torturing this boy and you've done nothing. Again. I've had enough. No more. He's done."

"Done?" Albus repeated, stilling.

"I'm not an idiot. I trained at St. Mungoes and then stayed on with their emergency team for fifteen years before coming to Hogwarts. I know what auror trainees look like when they come in. And they come in even for the small things, because the program makes it mandatory." She sent an accusing, loath-filled glare at Moody. "Mr. Potter's injuries are much worse and frequent than any auror or auror trainee I've seen."

"Poppy, I'm aware that Alastor's methods may seem harsh but-"

"Harsh?" She laughed. "Albus. I believe that he is hurting that boy for no good purpose. I believe that he is pushing that boy beyond his limits and that when Harry fails he is punished for it. Moody does not need to throw blood boiling curses or slashing hexes. I know there are target spells that are just as powerful and just as effective to get through shields. Without injuring the trainee."

"He sends them back at me as well!" Moody threw in. "There hasn't been a single spell I cast at him that he doesn't cast back."

"Then he must be absolutely incompetent and your lessons are useless." She snarled. "Because you come to me, for anything more than a parchment cut, and I've barely seen you once a week!"

"Now see here!" Moody growled. "I will not have my methods questioned. They've had results. You've seen the results."

"Yes," she did a remarkable imitation of a sneer. "I have."

"We can't stop his lessons." Albus interrupted the veritable cat fight that was about to happen, "Harry needs it if he's to survive what's to come."

"Albus. If Harry sets one foot alone in a room with that man again. I'll go to the board. I've already left copies of Mr. Potter's records with confidential sources. One of whom obliviated me of the incident by my request."

Severus gaped at the woman. Sure, she had disclosed that she didn't trust the headmaster with Potter's welfare. But this was openly stating that she feared he might attempt to coerce her magically.

"I'm sorry that you felt you had to do that, Poppy."

"I am as well, Albus." She stood tall against his disappointed gaze. "I've let you do as you will with him for years. He's suffered greatly and I've stayed quiet. You've done heinous things to him and I've stitched him up and sent him to bed. He may need to be trained. But you cannot condone the violence you've done to him. I've had enough. Harry Potter is still a child and a student at this school. And you will treat him as such. No other teacher could be aware of what you've been putting him through. I doubt they'd condone it either."

She was right. The staff had no idea of how Potter was being trained. All they knew was that his marks had improved and they sought to add to that by giving him additional assignments. He looked tired, but so did nearly all of the students throughout the day. Except one.

"Filius Flitwick is a master duelist." He surprised himself by saying and he'd also expressed some knowledge that Moody was training him as well as concern that it was a little much for the boy. "Perhaps he would take over a lesson or two?"

"Excellent suggestion, Severus." Albus smiled. "I will speak with him on the matter. Would that suffice, Poppy?"

"No, it wouldn't. Not unless you mean that Harry is only going to be taught by Filius."

She wasn't budging.

"I see," Albus nodded slowly. "Very well. Perhaps, would you agree to allowing Mr. Potter to continue lessons with Alastor if they are supervised? "

"And?"

"And Alastor will agree to adhere to the rules that he would when instructing a first year auror trainee. We will acquire a set of training wands. Will that suffice?"

"Mmph. Barely, you should have had those restrictions from the beginning. And his lessons? Six evenings filled out of seven is ridiculous, especially for a student who is taking his NEWTs level classes."

"Now Poppy..." Albus took one look at her face and faltered a bit. "Perhaps we can reduce his lessons with Severus to once a week."

"I don't care about his lessons with Severus," she snapped back at him. "The boy doesn't get injured in those ones. I want the weekends free."

"No," both Albus and Moody replied in unison.

"The training is important, Poppy." Albus continued, tone firm. "It will keep Harry alive in the time to come. But I agree we may have been pushing the boy too hard. Perhaps his Thursday session can be reduced to an hour and theory only." Moody grunted an agreement.

"Not good enough. Thursday will have a one hour of theory and one lesson on Sunday. Filius can take Sunday. Harry should be attending quidditch practice at three, like you agreed."

Albus hesitated, but one look at the bed beyond the window decided him. "Two three-hour lessons on Sunday, Filius can take one of them, a one hour theory lesson on Thursdays and two two-hour lessons on Saturdays, one of which is physical training."

"And the poisoning of his food?"

"Will stop."

"And he'll be told he doesn't need to check his food every day."

"It is a good practice for him to begin." Albus said thoughtfully.

"Do you?"

"No." Albus admitted and sighed. "Very well. He'll be told."

"If he's poisoned again I will not hesitate to go to the board." She said firmly. "And if he's left alone with that man even for a minute…"

"I understand, Poppy."

"I don't think you do." She didn't look at him. "If you did, you would never have forced me to threaten you to do what's right."

* * *

Draco sneaked into the infirmary. He'd worried about Harry all day. And then seeing him floating in front of his godfather like that. He was bruised, bloody and pale. It had taken everything in him not to sweep Harry up in his arms and check him over. And then it had taken everything in him not to kill Moody. So he'd sneered instead. Taking up every bit of and hate he could for the disgusting piece of human rot in front of him, he sneered and asked about Harry as though he loathed him.

But he was in truth terrified. Harry in the hall was missing that overall presence. The power that made Draco tingle when ever he was near him. Only the fact that his godfather had looked angry, not worried, had calmed him.

And now, with everyone asleep he knew that the infirmary would be empty and that he would be able to get in without anyone seeing .

Harry was on his bed, the bed that Draco had seen him in over the past few years when Potter was injured or sick since the first year.

"Draco." Harry smiled. "I knew you'd come."

"Yeah?" Draco pecked him on the lips, running his hands down the other boy to check and see if he was injured. "What happened?"

"Magical exhaustion." Harry admitted. "Moody kept me going since early this morning."

"I saw you in the hall." Draco took his hand and received a reassuring squeeze in return.

"I know."

"Will you be let out tomorrow?"

"I think so." Potter looked a bit confused. "She was yelling at Dumbledoor and Moody."

"Good. Maybe she talked some sense into them." He started running his fingers of his free hand through Harry's limp locks. Even his hair had lost it's energy.

"Mm." Harry nudged his head forwards a bit so Draco could reach more of his scalp. "I'm not going to do lessons anymore with Moody. You're right. It's stupid. I've learned enough from him that I think I can work on my own if I can't get anyone else to teach me."

"Really?" Draco kissed him lightly on the mouth. "That's good. Really good, Harry."

"I'm not going to let them hurt me anymore, just because they can." Harry fingered the sleeve of the silver robes Draco was wearing. They were soft with a high collar, the lining was a deep green to match the lighter green shirt underneath. "Did my clothes come?"

"Yes." Draco awarded him with another kiss. "Thank-you. They're wonderful."

"I just told him to make something you'd like. I wouldn't have been able to pick it out."

"Who cares? They're from you. Will you come tomorrow?"

"Yes. After supper. I don't have lessons anymore on Mondays." Or the rest of the week, if he really wasn't going to take lessons from Moody anymore.

"You'll be going to supper?"

"Of course."

Pleased, Draco carefully laid down on the bed. Harry scooted over a bit and then cuddled right in when Draco was settled.

"Will you stay with me for a little while?" Harry mumbled, already falling asleep.

"Of course." Draco gently ran his fingers through the shorter, but still messy hair. "I'll stay forever."


End file.
